


Kings or Knaves

by Mab (Mab_Browne)



Series: Regency Sentinel [3]
Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Blackmail, M/M, Regency, Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-21
Updated: 2009-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-03 11:43:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 40,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mab_Browne/pseuds/Mab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the year 1819, blackmail and the return of an old nemesis strain Blair and Jim's relationship to breaking point. Third story of the Regency Sentinel series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kings or Knaves

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the plot of this story revolves around Blair's adolescent sexual activity. He was of age by the standards of the nineteenth century, although not now. The circumstances are not graphically described, and Blair is an adult for the events of this story, and so I haven't used AO3's underage warning. Other notes relating to this subject are at the end of the story.

London was a great city in that year of 1819, by definition a place that had no dead of night because there must always be some event, some person, to disturb the quiet. But for all that, Jim slept peacefully in London, so long as Blair lay beside him. He slept now, cradled in the softness of the bed, his lover asleep beside him; not embracing, but always in contact through small touches, a brush of a hand against a hip, the rub of a foot against a firmly muscled calf.

The room was dark, the peace complete; the two men rested in safety. But safety and peace are fragile, and the dark hides many things, especially in great cities.

***

Joel considered it as well that they were in London, because if the letter that rested in his hands had arrived at Ashford, it would have been food for gossip for weeks. The boy from the village would have said something, likely one of the maids would have opened the door, if it hadn't been passed through the kitchens to be seen by one and all. No, it was as well that the only person who was subject to mighty stirrings of curiosity at a letter franked and sealed on the authority of the Duke of Stavely was Joel himself.

He sighed. All was quiet upstairs, and he had come to know that in this house, town hours were set by the two men currently still asleep. They had come in late last night, perhaps not so late as they could have, after a party hosted by Mr and Mrs Charles Spring. Blair had never completely accommodated himself to his mother's marriage to Spring, but love and courtesy both commanded his attendance, and of course, where Blair went, there went Jim. And now, presumably, they slept. Joel presumed no more than that they slept. For all his concern for his two charges, there were some portions of their life that Joel chose not to contemplate.

Joel presumed wrongly in part. Jim and Blair were awake, but quiet, tangled in each other's arms, considering the day's plans.

"What of a trip to the Fives Court?" Blair enquired. "There are two seasoned men fighting there today, or so the bills declared."

Jim stirred lazily. "Then I'll need a fortifying dinner later. The fine art of pugilism always makes you randy." His hands stroked lightly across Blair's shoulders.

"Not at all."

"True enough," Jim said with a smile. "Everything makes you randy."

Blair's indignation at this was entirely feigned. "I suspect that you're jealous. Dried up, elderly stick that you are." Blair was quick. He needed to be, and the covers were thrown back in a white flurry of linen as he made a squirming, bounding escape from Jim's wrath.

"Ah, ah, Captain Ellison." Blair paused to admire Jim, a stern but slightly flushed Jove on his knees amongst the bedcovers. "I'm hungry. And Joel is likely wistfully twiddling his fingers below, waiting on activity."

Jim was out of the bed by now. "_I_ am waiting on activity," he declared. His hands grasped across Blair's biceps. "I'm also hungry." His head bent so that his lips could tease across Blair's mouth. He awaited capitulation, and he was not disappointed, as Blair shifted in his grasp and lifted his hands to cup Jim's head.

"Perhaps breakfast can wait. I'm sure you can reward my patience, and help me ignore my rumbling belly."

Fierce amusement lit Jim's face. "I think that lies within my capacity."

***

"You have a letter, Mr Sandburg," Joel said. "Sent from someone most august."

Blair was busy gulping coffee as if it were the elixir of life, while Jim sipped his more judiciously. Watching Jim instruct Joel in the exact manner of preparing coffee to suit Jim's newly precise sense of taste had both fascinated and immoderately amused Blair, and master and servant had made the process of instruction and learning a speedy one out of an entirely shared sense of self-preservation. There were only so many questions a man could stand.

"And who might be sending you letters, Sandburg?"

Blair held out his hand. "I will reveal all once I know." But when he saw the frank on the paper, all the fun went out of the game, and concern crossed Blair's face. He broke the seal quickly, while both Joel and Jim watched him, seeing the mischief flee Blair's expression.

The paper was thick and pale, and the script which crossed it was boldly elegant.

> "My very dear Blair,
> 
> It is many years since you and I have shared so much as acquaintance (let alone intimacy) but I must command your presence.
> 
> I require that you attend upon me on the evening of April 10th, at my house in Grosvenor Square. Formal attire is not required, as this is regrettably a matter of business, or perhaps even a council of war.
> 
> I do hope that the Post delivers this promptly. Alas, that I have reasons for not sending a footman to that little box where you dwell - in quite sedate domesticity, I understand. Who would have thought it, but of course you are now grown, delightfully I'm sure, to man's estate.
> 
> Do not fail me, my dear, for you would be failing yourself, and the many fond remembrances that we must hold of each other. And for your own sake, be discreet with this message.
> 
> Stavely"

The signature was flourished, but Blair failed to appreciate the effect. Instead, he was overcome with anxiety. He had firmly believed the Duke of Stavely to be a past chapter of his life.

"Bad news, is it?"

Blair looked across the table to Jim, his face alternating between pale and flushed.

"I don't know, since the tone is hardly informative. I must go out this evening, to meet with the Duke of Stavely."

"A duke," Jim commented. "You fell in the world when you condescended to associate with me." He gazed at Blair, who was suddenly the only focus of all his considerable attention. Sight, hearing, smell - all confirmed his agitation to Jim.

Blair gestured sharply. "Enough joking. And I will not speculate, because it seems quite useless. I have no idea why his grace requires me, except that he's a man of whims. So for today you and I will join the fancy and watch the match, and enjoy a good dinner. And then I will visit his grace and await revelation." He grinned, determined to think no more of the matter, and to encourage Jim to do the same. "I think the blue-striped neck-cloth. What say you?"

"I say that if you wear that abomination you'll attend the boxing alone." Jim smiled in his turn, but he noted how Blair carefully folded the letter, and put it away in the pocket of his coat before they left for their excursion.

The day fell flat somehow, for all Blair's liveliness. Jim was unaccustomed to not being in Blair's full confidence, but he understood that Blair's confusion was as genuine as his worry. Jim was no reader of the court papers and he was sure he hadn't seen Stavely's name in the political news. What the Duke might want with Blair was a matter for speculation but Blair gently but definitely discouraged Jim's most delicate attempts to discuss the issue, as well as his more direct efforts.

Blair dressed for his appointment with all the fastidious care of a debutante being presented at court, but in the plainest of his good clothes.

"You look like a parson," Jim teased, not liking the set determination in the way that Blair attended to his hands and his hair. He was rewarded with a flash of smile.

"That, I very much doubt. But somehow I don't think this is an occasion for peacocking."

Jim was strangely unsettled by a Blair who didn't want to flaunt his plumage. His friend had always enjoyed a preference for bright colours and some of the smaller extremes of fashion and was particular about the cut and styling of his hair. But tonight, his waistcoat was plain, and there wasn't so much as a tie-pin or plain ring to be seen in his ensemble.

"I take it back. You look like a nun." Blair turned sharply to him, as if pricked unexpectedly, before his face cleared.

"Are there Jewish nuns as well as Jewish parsons?" he enquired innocently, before he kissed Jim in farewell, a lingering kiss. "Don't wait up for me. I believe that his grace keeps late hours, and I will have to extricate myself as best as I can."

He walked out the door, leaving Jim to unsatisfactory solitude. Joel came and sat with him in the dining room, an unthinkable informality at Ashford, but normal in Blair's London house.

"The Duke of Stavely. Perhaps I should enquire amongst the gossips of the area," Joel said.

Jim stared at the fire. "Yes, you do that, Joel. And I shall visit my brother, I think. He knows far more of the ton than I do." Indeed, he would visit Stephen this evening - now in fact, and take his chances that his brother would be at home. Anything seemed better than watching the flames and remembering the way that Blair's hands clutched nervously at Jim's shoulders.

Joel recognised resolution when he saw it. "I shall gather together something suitable for you to wear, then?"

Jim stood. "I think so, whatever's quickest to find. If Stephen is at home, I needn't stand on ceremony, and if he's not, I'm in no mind to have wasted my time over dress."

Jim's time was not wasted. He was let in to Stephen's house and shown to his study, where a fire burned in the grate and threw flickering shadows on walls that weren't nearly so adorned with books as Blair's small library. The room smelled of Stephen's snuff and Jim had to control an urge to sneeze.

"Jim. This is an unexpected pleasure." His brother entered. "I thought that we were surely not due any more calls for at least another few days. And where is Blair?"

"He is out this evening." Jim was suddenly glad of the trivialities of courtesy. They enabled him to keep his temper when he saw the tiny signs of relief in Stephen that Blair was not there. "How is Louise, and the next insurance of the succession?"

Stephen smiled, but there was anxiety buried beneath it. "She continues in unsettled health, but the doctor assures us that there is no need to fear for her or the child. I wish that she might be able to eat more, however. She grows thin. It sits badly on her when she should be increasing in more ways than one."

He moved to a table, indicated the decanter and glasses. "Do you wish..."

Jim nodded, and sat by the fire. "Thank you."

Stephen joined him, and handed him a glass, the red of the drink warmed to a jewelled glow by the leaping flames.

"You are here, unexpectedly, and without Blair. Does this mean you have something confidential to discuss with me?"

"Being without Blair is a purely temporary circumstance," Jim said waspishly.

Stephen sipped his port. "And when might I have suggested otherwise? Come, Jim, you are not going to claim that you were lonely for my fraternal company, are you? Not when it's but four days since your last visit. With Blair."

"What do you know of the Duke of Stavely?"

Stephen's eyebrows rose. "I know what the wider world knows of him. He's rich and of an evil reputation."

"How evil?" And how did Blair know such a man to receive a letter, a summons, from him and answer it like a hound to a whistle?

"I should prefer that Louise draw her skirts away if she passed him in the street," Stephen said dryly. "There are all sorts of vile rumours attached to him. That he is a pederast and a devotee of the whip, not as applied to horses, you understand. That his house is the scene of what can only be called orgies, and that his grace's advancing years have not tempered his depravity." He paused in comprehension. "Jim, never tell me that Blair is at Stavely's house tonight!"

Jim's silence was eloquence itself, and Stephen stood and began to pace in agitation.

"You must put a stop to it. Bad enough..." he stopped.

"Bad enough our own depravity?"

"Do not put words into my mouth," Stephen snapped. "But Blair must not associate with Stavely. No decent people have anything to do with him."

This made Jim smile in wry, angry humour. "But Blair is not a gentleman."

"You are very calm at Blair's attendance on a hardened debauchee. What possible business can he have with Stavely?"

Jim sobered. "That, I don't know. I didn't even know who Stavely was, let alone that Blair had any sort of acquaintance with him."

"What has Blair, of all people, to do with a duke?"

"I don't know," Jim admitted once more.

Stephen had seated himself again, and he looked at Jim over the top of his glass. "He made no explanation. And you have no speculation, at least none that you are presenting to me. I think that you're as worried as I am."

Jim had no thought that he was prepared to offer to Stephen. Blair had said things before, dropped hints that gambling was not the only part of his past that might not stand scrutiny. He shrugged.

"Would I be plumbing your superior knowledge of the ton if I wasn't worried?"

"You should be." Stephen took a breath. "Believe it or not, I value Blair for himself, as well as for the affection you bear him. He should be detached from Stavely's influence, Jim. With all speed."

***

The house of the Duke of Stavely was grand and far more austere than its owner. It rose five stories, the better to accommodate spacious salons and an excellent library, which a Blair of nearly thirty years of age would appreciate more than the callow fifteen-years youth who once treated it as his playground. There were other playgrounds within Stavely's house, but they no longer mattered. Blair would know them no more.

A liveried footman of remarkable good looks showed Blair to a room he knew well. There were fine paintings on the wall; landscapes of seigneurial lands, ancestors looking down on the assembly with calm disdain. The hangings had changed, but Blair noted that his grace still favoured a particular shade of dark green.

Blair was ushered in but not announced. There were perhaps ten men present, and the mood of the room was morose. Blair flicked his gaze from man to man, and was surveyed in his turn. No orgy this, unless one of suspicion. He took a breath, and accepted a glass from a proffered tray.

The men were huddled in three small groups, according to who knew who best. Blair recognised one man, George Sefton, not a likeable man, before he saw Alfred Easton. Easton had gone to fat, but his face was still that of the effete, amiable man Blair remembered, and he stepped forward, trying to catch Easton's eye. The man looked up and might have smiled in welcome, when his gaze looked past Blair and became alarmed. Blair had barely begun to turn when the shock of a blow to his jaw felled him. His glass went flying and he sprawled on the fine carpet, the heel of one hand burned raw by the force of his fall.

Dazed, but sparking with self-defensive anger, Blair tried to get up. A figure loomed over him, then two, and then the space above him was clear. Blair sat up, hands propped on the floor, and saw Sefton in a spiderish mirror image of his own position, dragged backwards by the grip in his hair of the hands of Edward Fitzcharles, Duke of Stavely.

The Duke's back was to Blair as he dragged Sefton away to a far corner of the room like some dunce in disgrace with a stern teacher. "And this, George, is why I have never accepted you as an intimate, for I can bear neither stupidity nor vulgarity." Stavely's voice was slightly breathless with exertion, but there was no obvious anger there. It burned in the light of his eyes, however. "Sit in a chair, and compose yourself, unless you wish this experience repeated with the indignity of footmen laying hands upon you."

"For God's sake, Stavely." Sefton's indignation was ignored by practically all the room as Stavely turned back to offer Blair his hand.

"Not all the greeting you might have expected in my house, my dear. Please, accept my most abject apologies." There was nothing abject in his bearing, and Blair accepted the large, pale hand extended to him, and was effortlessly hauled to his feet, before he was shown to a chair drawn out from the table by a servant. Stavely murmured, "A basin, liniment and cloths," and the servant was gone. His hand gently tilted Blair's face to the light of the nearest candles. "He has marked you, love. Shall I call him out on your behalf?"

Blair tried to gather his wits. "Duelling is an archaic custom, your grace." He winced, as speaking irritated the pains in his lip and jaw.

A short bark of laughter sounded. "But, my dear boy, surely such an ancient as myself must be allowed some return to the customs of his heyday?"

Blair blushed in mortification. The Duke was rising sixty, and marked by his age and a long career of vice, for all that his body was still strong.

Sefton's voice rose querulously from his corner. "Stavely, I demand an explanation, and an apology." Jewish bastard and descendant of royal bastards shared a wry look, which noted that Sefton did not choose to move from his isolation.

"Sefton, the explanation is that you are a fool, and indeed, I am very sorry for it." The servant returned with all his grace's requirements, and Blair sat still, the centre of attention and very uncomfortable about it, as Stavely leaned in close and with his own hands washed and dressed the cut and bruise on Blair's face. Stavely gestured, murmuring, "My guests and I will be alone now," and all the servants withdrew.

"Gentlemen, seat yourselves at the table. You also, Sefton, if you can conduct yourself better. If I had planned a public brawl I would have invited you to some low tavern, not my home."

Sefton sat, along with the others present, and made no comment, letting the sulkiness of his face speak for him. Blair sat pinned between relief that the curious summons was about to be explained, and anxiety as to why he and all these others were here.

"You all remember John Mulgrew?" Some of the men instantly remembered Mulgrew, a rather wild gentleman whose stated intention of some fifteen years ago had been to write a satirical poem which mentioned every molly-house in London. Others required further explanation. Blair remembered Mulgrew well. He had written an ode to the beauty of Blair's eyes. Blair grinned despite himself. It had been a very, very bad ode. Mulgrew had possessed far more talent at whoring and rake-helling than at writing, or at hunting for that matter, where he had met his death at a badly-taken fence.

"Regrettably," Stavely said, "among his other literary pretensions, dear John kept a journal."

Some of the men at that table, Sefton among them, had already discovered to their cost that Mulgrew had kept a diary - an explicit diary, giving names and places and dates. The implications shocked everyone who had been ignorant, Blair not the least. Mulgrew had been an active, a very active, member of Stavely's set at the time Blair knew him. Stavely's Hellhounds they had been known as in some circles. Complete with attendant puppies wagging their tails, had been the comment of one wit.

"In brief, gentlemen, those of you who have not already been milked of blackmail money may soon expect some unsavoury callers."

A babble of shocked exclamations and questions broke out around the table.

"And you have not received any callers, Sandburg?" Sefton asked.

Blair answered, "No," shortly but civilly enough, until understanding struck. "No, by God, and not because I'm some blackmailer."

Stavely's hand closed over Blair's arm. "Peace, sweetheart. I am sure that Sefton now realises that you would hardly be here if any such thing was the case."

"And why not, your grace? Sefton retorted. "A Jewish whore and gambler, and his house with no savoury reputation in its time? He hardly has anything to lose by turning to blackmail, and much to gain." Men stared or dropped their eyes. One or two nodded sagely, as if Sefton had made a clever point in debate.

Stavely's grip on Blair's arm was steel, but Blair hardly felt it. His thoughts were consumed with horror. He thought of some of the events that Mulgrew might have recorded. Five years ago it would have been a humiliation if he had been mentioned in lampoons or broadsheet scandal, but if worst came to worst, he might have changed his name and continued on his way. But now - his mother and the security for which she had shackled herself, Jim and his family, dear God, Jim, might be soiled with a scandal which made Blair and Jim's relationship a trivial breach of etiquette. Cold sweat broke out on his brow.

"You are mistaken," Stavely said, releasing Blair's arm. "He has as much to lose in his way as any of us."

His look pierced Sefton, until he subsided, only to very nearly bleat, "These leeches will suck me dry! If not Sandburg, then who?"

"Preston."

More noise around the table, some of confusion, some merely of disbelieving understanding. Stavely raised his hand.

"I don't know how he obtained the papers. And it must be costing him a pretty penny in agents to hide his traces, but then I suspect that malice is more his motive than profit. He is enjoying the game, and playing it well. I know it is him, but I have no proof."

Preston was unknown to Blair. He fought for concentration. He must miss nothing, no piece of information that he could use.

"If you have no proof, then how do you know it's Preston?" one man asked; William Forbes by name. He was thin and nearly bald, and his skin glistened with the same terrified sweat as Blair's.

The Duke's face softened with what might have passed for sympathy in another man. Forbes was an old, old friend of Stavely's, and Blair remembered him well.

"Because blackmailers will hardly use men, or women, of integrity as their agents. I received information, and I have no reason to doubt it." He glanced at Blair then, a hooded look of conjecture and curiosity.

"Preston has no need of integrity, he has exactly where he wants us." Easton spoke now. "I'm pleased to know whom I should curse for my misery, your grace, but what is to be done?" His good-natured face was creased with anger.

Another man spoke up. "Did Mulgrew truly write any diary? How do we know that Preston has anything?"

Forbes broke in. "I asked the same question. I received a half a page detailing some adventure which we need not discuss in detail. I had letters from Mulgrew, in relation to some mundane matters. The handwriting is his, or if it is a forgery, it makes no difference."

"Will passed the paper on to me, " Stavely said. "I too recognised Mulgrew's writing. And the events, described in sadly florid prose. There can be no doubt the threat is genuine, hence this meeting. You are here because either you have been targeted, or are likely to be, and I have some vague hope of your discretion."

"But what are we to do?" Easton said again.

"Change your name, my dear," the duke suggested suavely. "Escape to the Americas."

"That is hardly a practical suggestion."

"Preston caught amongst a gang of bravos with a knife in his ribs sounds a handy solution," one man suggested heatedly.

"That would soothe my sense of justice but not my sense of safety," Forbes snapped. "Don't be a fool. Don't you think that Preston has made threats against his victims if he dies suspiciously? I've no great desire for my friends and family to receive pages of Mulgrew's damnable diary. If that gaby weren't already dead, I'd happily see him so."

"Keep the name of fool for yourself! What need had I to know that the axe may fall, when there is no way to escape it?"

The gathered men broke into argument, some for happy ignorance, others for knowledge, however deplorable. Blair sat in the latter camp. Stavely's voice rose against the din.

"Enough! There is always escape from the consequences of discovery, however little any of you may favour the cost. At the least you may brace yourselves and make your peace with God or the Devil, according to your preferences." He shook his head. "I have discovered some small chance to spike Preston's guns - but the chance is small, and should not be depended upon."

There was more hubbub, but the Duke declined to explain himself further, although his eyes rested on Blair in an appraising manner. The meeting broke up, men travelling in the dark to their homes or inns, as they desired, to pray or curse or become drunk as they wished. One man, Ronald Ware, even recorded the evening in his own diary, although unlike John Mulgrew, he at least had the wisdom to write in his own private code.

Blair was preparing to take his leave in his turn. His heart was leaden, and he dreaded explaining the meeting to Jim, to the point where he felt almost physically ill. Stavely, however, made it clear that Blair must stay behind, because he had something to discuss with him in private. Blair's heart sank still further, but he clung to the Duke's words - 'I have discovered some small chance'.

The Duke sat before the fire, and gestured to Blair to sit in the chair opposite.

"Does he treat you well, your soldier squireen?"

Blair's jaw jutted at this description of Jim. "Yes, your grace. Very well."

"I am glad of it. Then you will be disappointed that you will not be able to share with him what I am about to discuss with you."

"I will warn you, you cannot extract any such promise from me."

"I can and I will, my dear. Or else I will tell you nothing, and I know your curiosity."

"Anything of this evening, or just this later matter?" Blair hedged.

"You may enlighten your beloved as to Preston, if you wish. But what I tell you now, you tell nobody else."

Blair sighed. "Very well."

"I was approached by one of Preston's agents. This person decided that I was a more likely, shall we say - 'patron', and offered to steal Mulgrew's diary for me. I was all attention, love, I swear."

"No doubt, your grace, but what has this to do with me?"

"It appeared to me that this person was unwell - I wondered if perhaps laudanum might be the case, rather than alcohol. Before the diary could be retrieved, my beautiful turn-coat fell rather severely ill."

Blair's drummed his fingers impatiently against his knee. He'd not seen this man for many years, but he remembered the Duke as a man of purpose.

"I would like you to see this person, this woman."

Blair's eyes widened.

"Oh, dear boy, to look so surprised that a woman might show resource. And you your mother's son." Stavely shrugged. "I took possession of some papers she had. You understand Spanish, do you not?"

A puzzled frown marked Blair's face. "I can read Spanish with the aid of a dictionary, but I couldn't keep up a conversation."

The Duke spread his hands in pleasure. "My enquiries made me hope for no more, but that is all I need. I require a translator, and this business does not incline me to pass on that task to someone unknown."

"Your - enquiries?"

Stavely smiled in vulpine amusement. "To be all-knowing, as is my reputation, one must be all-seeing. And I do have a great deal of money to pay for other's eyes to see for me."

Blair wiped his hands over his face. He was exhausted and confused, and he still had to face Jim bearing this night's news.

"Your grace, it's not my intention to be discourteous, but why does so much secrecy attach to me translating some papers? And if this woman is Spanish, I'll be no help to you. As I said, I'm not fluent."

His grace's hand reached out and took Blair's. Stavely stood, forcing Blair to stand with him, as the grip was gentle but unyielding.

"I need you to see my patient first. I believe that seeing her will explain much."

He led Blair on up the stairs, where lights still burned dimly, to the top of the house. Blair felt almost as if he were in a dream. It had been years ago that he knew this house, the shadows of the hallways in the candlelight, the touch of this man's hand on his skin. He shuddered with sudden sensual recollection. He wanted no-one else but Jim, knew this contact was nothing but games and imperious nature in Stavely, but his body recalled times long past.

Stavely smiled; no, Stavely grinned. "We had such pleasant times together, did we not? My angel with the strong right arm."

Blair wrenched his hand away. What was he thinking? "That was long ago."

Stavely turned closer, and stroked his index finger gently across Blair's cheek, as Blair stared nervously up at that lined, impenetrable face. Stavely was tall, as tall as Jim. "Never fear, dear boy. You're far too old now for that game." He walked on a few more steps down a bare, uncarpeted hallway. "Here now." He knocked brusquely at the door, which was opened by a stern-faced, square-bodied woman. "How is your charge?"

The woman curtsied.

"She took a patch of frenzy earlier, but she's resting now, sir. I'll need more lotion for her though, your lordship, she took to herself with her nails again."

Stavely gestured. "Come, Blair. If I'm as all-knowing as the world believes, then you know the woman in the next room."

Blair stepped forward, his heart in his mouth, he knew not why. Stavely locked the door behind him, like the madhouse this must be if the sick woman was scoring her skin with her own nails. The next door was unlocked and opened, and Stavely led Blair through, holding a single candle to light the room.

There was a bed and nothing else, except for some batting attached to the walls. Some of it hung in strips, or lay scattered across the floor. The bedcovers were untidily rumpled, with the linen wrapped around a huddled shape like the cocoon of some strange moth. The face, and some strands of untidy blonde hair were all that could be seen. Blair stared, struck with horror and amazement. The woman was Alicia Bannister.

Blair swayed so alarmingly that Stavely clutched his arm.

"I remain omniscient, I see. Let us withdraw, and leave this lady to her rest."

Blair stumbled out of the prison rooms and into the hallway.

"You and I have much to discuss, dear boy."

"We have nothing to discuss. I cannot help, your grace, I cannot!"

"Lower your voice, Blair. I must pay Mrs Carter a queenly sum for her discretion as it is. And she deserves some peace and quiet if sweet Alicia has been misbehaving today."

Blair leaned against the wall. His heart hammered, and his chest heaved in a desperate search for air. He wasn't in a dim hallway at all, he was in a moonlit grey copse, and he could hear the sound of a stream.

"You don't understand!" he protested.

Stavely's hands held hard to Blair's upper arms. The grip was most practical, for it held Blair upright, and firmly expressed Stavely's anger and fear.

"Perhaps I do not understand. But I can't show you pity. She came to me confused and ill, and my first thought, disappointed though it was, was that she might have had Mulgrew's accursed book in her belongings. She did not, nor does she mention its hiding place in anything I can read for myself. Clearly, she uses Spanish against the chance of discovery. Perhaps, only perhaps, there is some clue in her other papers."

Blair shook his head. "I doubt it. She's not a woman to leave herself vulnerable in that way."

"Then the papers are valuable to her in some other way. An explanation of her malady, that we might restore her to health and a sense of her own advantage. She is seldom lucid, and she will tell me nothing." Stavely spoke with bitter frustration, and his grip was harsh against Blair's arms. He calmed somewhat.

"Let us not have this discussion here. Her hearing is most acute, is it not?"

Blair turned so pale that the Duke was grateful he still supported him. "Before we discuss this further, I think that you should take a little brandy. A scholar such as yourself will surely be interested in her ravings of sentinels and guides - a fascinating folk-lore, to be sure."

Blair dragged himself from Stavely's grip. "I will keep my promise to say nothing, but I will not be party to this. I will not." Bad enough the news of Preston, without mixing Alicia Bannister into the scandal-broth. He bleakly reviewed his options - he must likely lie to Jim or else break his promise of secrecy to Stavely.

The Duke frowned. Whatever he saw in Blair's face did not make him lose hope. "So you say now, but when you've had time for reflection, I think you might change your mind. You know where to find me."

Blair shook his head. "No. I am - I am gratified by the confidence you have reposed in me, but I will not be back." He walked down the stairs with a drunkard's care, his hands wrapped precisely around the balustrade.

"Good night to you, your grace. Thank you for your thought in giving me this news. I..." Blair broke off, made a brief bow, and set off for the hackney that had waited all this time for him. He hoped that he would have enough coin for the payment, and he huddled in the enclosure, feeling ill and cold.

The brisk noise of the horse's hooves mocked the slow turn of his thoughts. He must think of how to break this news to Jim, and he must brace himself for whatever consequences came from it. Even if Preston never tried to extract money from Blair, or from Jim... dear God, what if he thought Jim made the better mark? Blair swallowed. If no other humiliation came out of this, he had now to make a confession of certain things that before he had only hinted at. And what would Jim have to say to those confessions, let alone the threat of Preston? Blair shivered. He should have known that what he had couldn't last. There was always a price, always.

***

Joel peeped his head around the doorway, and sighed. Jim sat in a chair by the fire, which was fast dying. His head leaned on his hand and he was not quite but very nearly asleep. Joel softly cleared his throat.

"I have turned down the bedcovers."

Jim started, and then nodded. "Thank you. Take yourself to bed, Joel."

Joel hesitated.

"What?" Jim asked. His voice was forbidding.

"Nothing, sir."

"Indeed. Go to bed, I'll make sure everything is locked once Sandburg is home."

Joel left with his curiosity and concern unsatisfied, and Jim stared at the embers and delicate grey fluff of ash in the grate. He liked this room, liked the warmth and order and comfort, but he liked it better when Blair sat in it. He waited a while longer before he heard the arrival of Blair's hackney, the sound of the latch and the door. He stood and walked to the hallway, and watched as Blair fumbled the door and bolts closed.

"Are you foxed, or merely tired?" he asked.

Startled, Blair turned. Jim took one look and stepped forward, not even aware any more of the way that his senses catalogued Blair. The pale skin, with the bruise and cut lip; the tacky remnant of sweat; the whiffs of strain and even fear; the drumming of Blair's heart and the quickness of his breath. He put an arm across Blair's shoulders, and felt the tiny flinch. That someone had hit Blair was more than obvious. Jim thought of Stavely's reputation and a killing rage rose in him, before Blair's head sank to rest on his shoulder.

"Why aren't you in bed? I told you I'd be late." The mundane words cooled the worst of the anger, but it still simmered.

"I left the nursery years ago, Sandburg." He kept his voice and hands gentle, but with an effort.

Blair shuddered with silent laughter. "Yes, yes you did." He lifted his head to survey Jim's face. "Perhaps it's as well that you're still dressed. When you hear my news, you may wish to depart with all speed in the morning."

"Where to?"

Blair removed himself reluctantly from the circle of Jim's arm. "Anywhere that I am not."

"That sounds a poor joke."

"It's not a joke." Blair stared around the house, his house, which he shared with Jim, just as Jim shared Ashford with him. "No joke. I wish it was."

His eyes rose to Jim's, which were narrowed in irritated confusion.

"Give me some explanation, or I'll think that you truly are foxed." But Jim knew the smell of Blair with too much liquor in him. There was, if he concentrated, a touch of the scent but not enough to make Blair drunk. Blair was covered in strange scents, the smell of strangers and a strange house, the outdoor scents of night London streets, besides the stench of obvious distress. It all distressed Jim in his turn, and churned his gut in angry foreboding.

"Let us go in to the dining room," Blair said and led the way. With a small sound of annoyance he stoked up the fire, and put some coals on it. It smoked, and both men coughed.

"Sorry. But I'm cold."

Jim sat in the chair he had been dozing in. Blair remained seated on his heels by the fireplace, staring at the coals with blind eyes. Jim waited. "Is your tongue cold, as well?"

Blair squared his shoulders and gathered his courage.

"How much attention to do you pay to what I say when I'm angry, Jim?"

"More than you perhaps think," Jim said steadily.

"I keep hoping that you will somehow magically guess everything I have to tell you, and spare me the shame. Foolishness. I told you I was employed by Sir Anthony Newley as a groom, a tiger. This brought me to the attention of several men whom he knew, and eventually to the Duke of Stavely's. I left Sir Anthony's employ, and went to the Duke's house instead."

Jim guessed some of what was coming, and shut his eyes. _'I've done worse than game with loaded dice, and I don't desire your judgement on that either.' 'I have influential friends.'_

"I went and saw Stephen this evening. He told me of Stavely's reputation. A pederast, as I suppose I am also, although you are hardly a boy any longer."

"Ah."

"How old were you, Sandburg?" No answer. The question cracked in the air again. "How old?"

"I was fifteen." Blair stood. His eyes flashed with anger and his voice was loud. "Yes, fifteen and a whore to a man whose tastes are either monstrously subtle or monstrously simple. I never could decide. And yes, I was shared amongst his friends, and I had no qualms. I was wanted and appreciated, and fifteen and randy as a stoat, and when Mama interfered I was hard pressed to forgive her for quite some time." He lowered his voice slightly, but the words came faster and faster, and Jim let the torrent of sound pass without touching him.

"When I left Stavely, the money he gave me was my stake for all that came later. Why do you think Mama so happily handed over the house and money when she married Spring? She worked with me, and we both built the sum, but the stake money - we had fallen on difficult times before that very opportune gift." Jim sat frozen in his chair, and Blair crouched before him, his hands resting on Jim's knees. "And that, that is merely the history to what has befallen now."

Jim made a guess. It was an underlying fear for all who could not fully be what Society expected of them.

"Someone is blackmailing Stavely."

Blair nodded, but all that Jim saw was the movement of his head, and the bowed expanse of his shoulders. "Not Stavely himself, not yet, but acquaintances and friends of his. All of us who were mentioned in a diary written by another man known to Stavely. I expect that I feature in several entries."

Jim understood why Blair had stoked the fire. He felt cold to his heart and he rested his hands gently in Blair's hair, felt the warmth of Blair's body rise through the tendrilled strands. Blair knelt instead of crouching, but remained leaning over Jim's lap, his head pillowed there. His eyes were blank and cold.

"You must leave me. I don't know if I have enough money to meet any blackmail demands, and if I refuse, then of course it will all become public. The more distance between us the better. I will disappear - Europe, America, somewhere. If I stay, Mama will try to meddle and that would only add to disaster."

"No."

Blair lifted his head, his face contorted. "For God's sake, Jim! Your loyalty does you credit, but think!"

"I am thinking." Jim leaned down and held Blair's face within his hands. "If the blackmailer comes after you, then I'm already tarred by association."

Blair pulled away and stood once more. "All the more reason to break with me now." His voice shook. "If I'm not with you, he has no evidence of anything more than an unfortunate friendship. Make any excuse that you like. If this becomes public, then I would rather my reputation sacrificed than yours."

"And what of your mother?"

"She is Spring's to protect now. Or to turn out of his house." Blair's hand clenched into a fist, to hide its trembling. He would have to tell his mother, or else wait for her to become another of Preston's victims. He imagined she might be very satisfactorily milked of money wheedled out of her indulgent husband, and felt ill once more.

"I won't leave you." Jim stayed seated in his chair, like an oak settled in parkland a hundred years.

"This is my house, Captain Ellison. If I demand that you leave, the law is on my side."

"And it will require writs and bailiffs, and will hardly take the tender care of my honour that you desire."

"Jim..." Blair was near open tears now, but Jim sat as calm as a graven image. The stern peace was entirely illusory, although Blair wasn't to know that. Anger, rage, had returned. Anger at the blackmailer, at the man who left the evidence for him to find, at Stavely for ever bringing Blair into his circle. Anger at Blair, for being young and foolish and entirely human in not daring to tell Jim the whole truth of his past. Anger at himself, for hadn't Blair dropped enough oblique hints that Jim should have taken them up, if he had truly wanted to know. And he had known; any man of sense and observation knew the hypocrisy that made prey of young people outside the ton. The shame lay in not paying for the care of your bastard by a servant girl or country maid, not in siring one. And with a beautiful boy - well, one less risk to be reckoned with, and Blair would have been a very beautiful boy.

"Who hit you?"

"What?" Sefton and his frightened temper was beyond Blair's concerns now. "It doesn't matter. Someone who misunderstood my presence in the Duke's house."

"No doubt you made it clear that you were no longer part of the chattels." Blair's face burned red, and Jim stood.

"I...that was not well-said. But this is not good news."

"Not good news at all." Blair's voice was hardly more than a whisper. "Jim, we must part."

"No." Blair opened his mouth to protest, but Jim continued, his voice hoarse. "It's not loyalty. Don't flatter me. I've been without you before, Sandburg. It wasn't to my taste."

Blair exploded into anger. "Stop being a simpleton! This isn't just an interesting titbit of gossip to make the rounds of the assembly halls. This could destroy you, and perhaps you have the right to choose for yourself, but what of Stephen and Louise and their children, or your father, or Sally for that matter? You have no right to choose for them, not in this."

An ugly obstinacy appeared on Jim's face. "The chance of scandal has always existed in what we are. I wouldn't give you up to death. What makes you think that this will make me let you go?"

Blair held his head in his hands and quite literally growled in frustration. "I'm going to bed. Perhaps you will have chosen a less cretinous path in the morning. Although I doubt it. Dear God, Jim! You will drive me mad!"

Blair stomped up the stairs and threw off his clothes, leaving everything in an untidy pile on the floor, even his good coat and waistcoat. Then he climbed into the bed, shivering at the cool touch of the sheets. The bed would take time to warm, and for once he had no great wish for Jim's heat or embrace.

Damn the man! Yes, if the two of them were exposed as lovers it would damage them and their family and friends as surely as Preston's trove of scandal. But that risk was within their control, understood and manageable. They knew where the boundaries of it began and ended. This, however...Blair curled up in a small ball, and felt tears prick his eyes. _'No doubt you made it clear that you were no longer part of the chattels.'_ Perhaps Jim would reconsider once he'd had more time. It would be better, Blair told himself. It would be better.

Even if Jim cast him off, the mud would still stick. And if Jim refused to leave him, then the only choice of safety was for them both to hide somehow, and that would still leave Jim's family, and Naomi and Spring to face the music. The duke had claimed a small chance to stop Preston. Blair snorted. Very small, if their salvation depended on Alicia Bannister. But it was the only chance they had. He had said nothing of her to Jim. Blair had promised Stavely; he might have considered breaking that promise in other circumstances, but not with Alicia's shadow looming over them alongside all the other portents of disaster.

The door opened, and Blair realised that he had neglected to lock it behind him. He sat up and glared towards the tall figure, revealed in the light of a single candle.

"You do have your own room," he declared coldly.

"And I never sleep in it here. I sleep with you." Jim saw the pile of discarded clothes, and went to pick them up, smoothing the linen across a chair, hanging up the jacket and waistcoat. Then he removed his own clothes and set them aside with the same deliberate care, before he got into the bed. Blair pointedly lay as very near the edge as he could without falling out. It made no difference. Jim's arms reached around him and dragged him back to the centre of the bed. Blair bore this interference in indignant, rigid silence, and they both lay there, silent and unhappy, until restless sleep claimed them.

The morning brought neither counsel nor joy. Joel could see that some disaster had befallen, and a speaking look from him brought Blair into the kitchen after breakfast.

"I don't know why you're attempting discretion, Joel. If he's not listening I'll eat my best hat."

"What trouble has the Duke of Stavely brought to this house?" Joel's head was bent over plates and cutlery. His voice was grim. So was Blair's.

"The Duke bears no blame. Any trouble is my own fault, but never fear. You and Jim won't suffer it, because you will be leaving soon."

Joel's brow lifted in startled surprise. "Leaving?" he questioned, before Jim's voice blasted down the corridor. "On a cold day in hell, Sandburg!"

"Told you," muttered Blair. If Joel's expression had been speaking, Jim's subsequent silence was a masterpiece of oratory.

"You had best enquire of Jim as to whatever you want to know. I must go out this morning." He turned smartly on his heel, leaving Joel none the wiser, but convinced that this trouble was at least as bad as the events of 1816, if only because he had never seen Blair in such obvious bad temper. He shuddered, remembering that devil-woman Bannister and her schemes. He wondered what evil Stavely had wrought, despite Blair's protestations; something very bad, that was for sure.

Blair was halfway up the stairs before he heard Jim behind him.

"Where are you going?" Jim asked.

"To see Stavely, and I would be grateful if you would stop eavesdropping."

Jim scowled. "Why?"

Blair turned and looked down at Jim, for once granted an advantage of height by the stairs. "I'm not sure which of my remarks you're questioning, but the answer is the same for both. It's not your business." He turned away and went to the bedroom, Jim stalking angrily after him.

"We've been each other's business for the last five years. I won't stop now because you're having a fit of the vapours."

Blair reached for coat and hat with ungraceful, jerky movements. "It needs more than a dose of hartshorn to mend this. There are matters I must discuss with the Duke." He began sorting through some of the books by the bed. "Presumably the Spanish dictionary is downstairs." Jim stood behind him, arms crossed belligerently, watching with increasing impatience.

"Why the hell do you need a Spanish dictionary?"

Blair stared down at the wood of his bureau, and did something he had never done before. He actively, purposely, lied to Jim. "His grace requires some of his library catalogued. No doubt he was impressed with the work I did before for him."

"Cataloguing the library would certainly be _my_ first consideration in these circumstances," Jim said, before he crowded closer to Blair and rested his hands on Blair's shoulders. He meant to be reassuring, but Blair still roiled with panicked anger.

"Will you leave me be! I told you I have business with his grace! That's everything you need to know."

Jim's hands lifted, and hung in the air as if in surrender.

"Blair, you're not alone in this."

"I'm all too aware of that," Blair said tightly.

"Then why won't you let me help - moral support if nothing else? I'll go with you to Stavely's."

Terror clawed its way from some place deep in Blair's guts, but somehow the very depth of the feeling kept him anchored in calm. "A librarian you're not, Jim. Stay at home." Jim remained standing in his way. "You can't help - unless you wish to begin your packing for Ashford while I'm away." Jim stepped back, his head averted, his eyes looking at some spot on the wall. Blair moved quickly past him, and clattered down the stairs. He wished that he was ten years old again and that running through the streets for the sheer need of movement wouldn't be seen as very nearly a scandal in itself. He found the dictionary in his library, and tucking it under his arm, he walked to the nearest hackney stand.

In his absence, Jim's belongings remained steadfastly in their places.

***

Stavely wisely hid the bulk of his satisfaction at Blair's return to Grosvenor Square.

"I am very pleased, my dear."

"I'm gratified to have given you pleasure, your grace." The Duke's eyebrow rose at this remark. Blair was not noticeably quelled, however. The frenetic desire to get on with task at hand fairly rose from him like a wave of heat. "Did she have mainly books or papers?"

"A small bundle of both. I have it put away in a locked cabinet of the library."

The library was very large, although the greater part of it was the work of the Duke's father and an uncle. It was familiar to Blair, even after nearly half of his life away. The care of this room and its contents had been his supposed employment in this house, and he'd taken it seriously, enquiring of men in the town libraries and dusty book shops, wandering among printer and bookbinders. It had been a source of some amusement to his bookish mentors, to see this earnest, handsome boy making his enquiries. Blair learned soon enough not to naively confess that he was in Stavely's employ. At best the information shut doors which had previously been opened. At worst it led to coarse offers and insults. He'd handled these books like treasures - read histories, novels and poetry, pored over maps, admired prints and lithographs. It had been his university, together with the even more broadening experiences with Stavely and his friends, and Blair would always be grateful to the Duke, however odd or even depraved the wider world might regard that feeling.

Stavely unlocked the door of a solid set of shelves set into the walls. "Here we are. Make what you can of it." He laid three books and a thick leather folder of papers on the table.

Stavely's house might, in its very strange way, have been a fairy-tale palace to Blair, but now it had a boggart hiding in the attics. With that in mind, Blair took off his coat, and rolled his shirt-sleeves all the way to his elbows.

"My dear, I had no idea that exercising the intellect needed so much care of one's clothes."

Blair's smile was glib, a blandly charming expression that he had perfected over the years. "I have my reasons, your grace. And I will require a basin of water and soap to wash my hands when I'm done." He didn't know how much of Alicia Bannister's scent permeated her belongings, but he had no intention of going home to Jim with his hands smelling of her. Blair bowed his head briefly at that thought. Home to Jim.

The books were two herbals of South American plants, and a collection of South American folk-tales recorded by a Jesuit priest. Blair began carefully turning pages. If he were Alicia, perhaps he might make some note, hidden in code - an aid to memory. There were a few notations, and he requested paper from the Duke, and tore it into strips to mark places.

"Why not crease the pages?" Stavely enquired, and was rewarded for his provocation with a look of horror, before Blair realised that he was being teased. Stavely watched a little while longer, before saying, "I have business I must be about. I will be back. Call the servants if you require anything." He handed Blair the key to the shelves. "If you must go before I return, put the papers away and return the key to me when you come back tomorrow."

Blair nodded absently, not questioning the fact that he would indeed return the next day. Books attended to and noted for more detailed perusal, he began flicking through the loose papers. These seemed more promising, but they would take time - the handwriting belonged to several people, and wasn't always particularly legible. Not all of it was in Spanish, but if the portions that were in English were to do with Preston, then the references were cleverly disguised. There was one drawing. Blair had seen Alicia Bannister's work before; he knew her style. A huge, stylised eye nearly filled the page, and resting in the centre of the picture, overlaying the pupil, was a woman, naked, her hair fanning out around her as if she lay in water. The rough depiction suggested that it was Alicia herself, and Blair stared in fascinated disgust. The picture unsettled him and not just because of who had drawn it. He put it aside and stared at the sheaves of paper spread across the table.

Despair filled him. How likely was it that there was any sort of answer to their problems here? He felt like Nero, fiddling while Rome burned, only instead he was going to translate useless pieces of paper while Preston composed malicious requests for money and sent bully boys to deliver them. He imagined one of Preston's creatures approaching Jim, or even Joel. They would go back to Preston well-marked; and then Preston would exact his revenge.

Barring his departure on a ship for somewhere far away, this seemed to be the only action Blair could take. He settled to business, picking one sheet of paper at random, and grew increasingly fascinated by what he discovered. When Stavely returned some hours later, he found Blair frantically scribbling notes.

"I begin to see why you rolled your sleeves up," the Duke said. Blair was incapable of writing for any length of time without becoming ink-stained. "Have you found any answers to our troubles?"

Blair swiped his hair back from his forehead. "I have only rough translations, and I've not transposed any of it yet."

The Duke's eyes turned to the papers covered in Blair's handwriting. Blair blushed. "Those are my own comments on some of the information."

"Your scholarly enthusiasms were ever a source of joy, my dear, but have we not more pressing concerns?"

"That's just it. I've seen nothing that might lead to Preston or the diary, unless it's very subtly coded, and if that's the case my Spanish is hardly fit for the task; but all these papers and books may be related to why she's now ill. I think. And if we can help her in any way, then perhaps she may, as your grace so acutely put it, be brought to a sense of her own advantage. She was seeking you as a patron beforehand, after all."

"Her advantage being our advantage, I suppose that is a small step forward."

Blair sighed. Then he looked at the Meissen clock on the mantle. "Good God! Is that the time?"

"It is indeed. Must I expect an assault on my premises because your soldier assumes I have abducted you?"

"Not quite." Blair grinned, and then sobered as he considered the time, his ink-stained state and the reason he was here. "I had best finish for now, and wash. Will you keep my notes for me, your grace?"

"If you wish. Why not take them back with you?"

Blair shook his head. "That wouldn't be wise."

"Is your soldier so very possessive and enquiring?"

Blair smiled again, in pleasant reminiscence. "Well, now that you come to mention it..."

"How exceedingly fatiguing," the Duke drawled. "So be it. Go and wash yourself. You will need to wash your face, too, my dear. You look a scrubby school-boy. Very charming, but somewhat dishevelled."

Blair was shown to a small room equipped with everything he might need to make himself respectable again, and scrubbed his arms as far as his elbows, and ducked his head and face for good measure. If he was going to investigate further, he would need to see Alicia, speak to her. If he didn't want Jim to know about that, then he would require even more particular measures of preparation and cleanliness.

Blair looked at his face in the mirror. He had thoroughly dried his hair with the towel, and it lay screwed in damp waves about his scalp. He didn't look like a school-boy. He looked like a grown man preparing to play a potentially wounding game of deceit. He could guess at Jim's anger if he knew what Blair was keeping back from him. But Blair had promised Stavely his discretion; and he could never forget the way that rage and hurt had sliced through him when he discovered Jim bent over Alicia in bestial attention, licking at her palm.

What Jim didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

***

What his sentinel didn't know wouldn't hurt him. 'Sentinel' was a new word for Blair to place with the name of 'guide', and it was a bitter irony that he had learned both words from Alicia Bannister. Sentinel was a word that fitted Jim well; his alertness, his care for his estate, and the people whom he regarded as under his protection. But when Jim's protective instincts were aroused, he became overbearing, and Blair was nigh ready to scream. When Jim's instincts were thwarted, as they must be now for his own protection, he became sullen or worse, sarcastic.

"Is it a catalogue or a translation that you are undertaking? Perhaps his grace has obtained some interesting filth about flagellant nuns and priests, or strange Moorish rituals? In which case, Sandburg, you might bring a few pages of it home for our entertainment."

"The last pornography we had you burned, as I recall," Blair snapped back. It was a misstep - a serious one. Blair must do nothing that might recall Alicia Bannister to Jim's thoughts. She was too much in Blair's thoughts. Tomorrow, he planned to see her face to face. Barring that brief, stunned sight of her in the attic, the last time they had faced each other had been across the steel of swords, and Blair's nerves were in shreds. The distraction of Jim's bad temper was no aid to Blair's planning, and he was finding it harder to lie to Jim than he'd realised. He desperately wanted to discuss his discoveries with Jim, but how could he do that without further lies to explain where the knowledge came from?

Blair offered the very smallest part of the truth that he could. "His grace has some small chance that might enable him to deal with Preston. Some papers," he swallowed, "in Spanish. But I cannot say more, Jim. I promised discretion to the Duke."

Jim's face lit with interest. "So how might he deal with Preston? That would be good news indeed."

"Did I not just say," Blair said irritably, "that I was bound to secrecy by his grace?"

"So long as that is all that you are bound to."

"What?"

Jim blushed - not something that he often did, but then Blair discerned that it was a flush of anger as much as anything.

"Forgive me if I don't understand your loyalty to a man who would beat you and do God knows what else for his gratification."

Blair gaped like a stranded fish, before he burst into hysterical laughter. "Oh, oh God, _Jim_," he wheezed.

Jim stood in dazed fury. "I'm glad that my concern for your well-being is so amusing, Sandburg." The noisy laughter drove him nearly distracted, and he marched up to Blair and shook him hard. "Stop this nonsense! Stop it now!"

Blair subsided. "I'm sorry, but you misunderstand."

"I don't misunderstand that you spend hours in the house of a man with one of the most evil reputations in the realm, whom you admit yourself was," Jim fought for a word that wouldn't actively insult Blair, "using you when you were barely more than a child."

"I was old enough to be hanged, Jim. I think I might be granted to be old enough to be fucked as well." They hanged ten year olds, which made Blair's defence frailer than he would have liked.

"I don't doubt that there was plenty of that." Jim's mouth was a hard, tight line, as tight as the grip of his hands on Blair's shoulders.

"Oh, God have mercy, you cannot be jealous?" There was no answer, and Blair incredulously said, "You are jealous. Jim, there's nothing to be jealous of. I sit in his grace's library and I read and I write. That's all."

"Which is why you come back so well washed each time?"

Blair rolled his eyes. This action did not diminish Jim's glare. "Because I'm covered in book dust and ink by the time I'm done, and I've no wish to tickle that sensitive nose of yours with the mould of ages. That - is - all."

Jim's hold on Blair loosened, and he bent his head. "You spend hours in that man's house, I hardly see you. And when you come back we snarl at each other like dogs in a fight pit. I don't want to fight."

Frustration and grief welled up in Blair. This was his fault, but he hardly knew how to remedy it. "Neither do I. But few men are good-natured when the sword of Damocles hangs over their heads." He moved close against Jim and put his arms across the broad back. He had been avoiding this contact all week, anxious lest Jim somehow smell or otherwise sense what Blair was about. Could Jim sense all the lies that Blair told him? Smell nervous sweat, hear the thumping of his heart, see betraying tiny tremors and flinches? Of course he could. No wonder they had been snarling at each other.

"I'm sorry that I cannot be more forthcoming with you. But I promised the Duke, and this business lies close to all sorts of private matters and I must keep my promise."

Jim sighed, and all his angry confusion was in his voice. "And you're loyal to him." Some of what Blair had said earlier finally made its impression on Jim's mind. "What did you mean, I misunderstood?"

It was Blair's turn to blush, for the silly laughter as much as the confession he must now likely make. He should have let Jim's comment pass for the sign of frustrated anger that it was, not burst out braying like a donkey.

"His grace did not beat me. You don't have to worry about that."

"And Stavely not beating you would be why you started cackling like a Bedlam inmate?"

Blair shrugged within Jim's arms. How to explain that his grace preferred that a crop be plied against his own noble hindquarters, and that he rewarded whoever brought matters to their culmination with the caress of his mouth.

"Blair." It was a plea for confidence and trust, not a prurient question, and Blair was forced to choose a degree of betrayal.

"The Duke didn't beat me, Jim. I beat him."

This new shock made Jim's head rear up, the better to stare down at Blair's face. "You beat him?"

"That is what I said." Blair stepped back, and nervously fiddled with his hair. "Don't ask for any more detail. I should not have told you that, but I know that this has been a trial to you."

Jim shook his head in utter bafflement. He had avoided thinking of any specific action, any particular hold that Stavely might have used against Blair, and the formlessness of his anxieties had inflated his fear like billowing smoke. This information only made him more abjectly confused. He sat down, and then looked across the room at Blair.

"Did you like it?" he asked forlornly.

"Oh, Jim." Blair disliked very much the way their life had become a painful farce. He walked over to Jim, intending to bend down and hug him, but Jim gathered him onto his lap like a dandled child. The position did nothing for Blair's pride, but then, he supposed, he had small right to that. He twined his arms around his lover's shoulders and hugged almost - almost - hard enough to soothe the sore places the last week had scored into Jim. Jim's head rested against the base of Blair's neck, and he sniffed deeply, and sighed. Blair still smelled wrong, somehow, and Jim wished that he knew why. But he had missed Blair's willing embrace, and he held on as tightly as he knew how.

Blair spoke, his voice gentle. "I'm well satisfied with what we do in bed, if that worries you. I don't yearn to beat you," amusement tinged his voice, "except very occasionally, and not for any carnal appetite." He paused. "Yes, I enjoyed it in its way, but it was an experience that belonged to its own time and place. I never developed a taste for it, the way some men do."

Jim lifted his head to look into Blair's face. "And what if I desired to beat you?" The two men held each others eyes a long moment and then Blair smiled in mischief and relief.

"You would have to catch me first, Captain Ellison."

Jim smiled back, but he was still troubled. Blair leaned his cheek against Jim's temple.

"It's called the English vice in Europe for a reason. You will have met men who indulged in it before now - especially given that you attended school, did you not?"

"No-one so close to me."

Now that the immediate crisis had passed, Blair made shift to get up from Jim's lap. "Nor so heavy, I imagine."

"Not so very heavy." Jim refused to loosen his grip around Blair's waist.

"Jim...I'm not some fainting maiden to sit upon your knee."

Jim replied with bland mock-reasonableness, "But I'd have thought you would like it. You can, after all, look down on me from this position."

"There are other positions from where I may look down on you," Blair growled. Jim's answer to that was to press his hand against Blair's head, the better to kiss him.

Blair tensed, guilty conscience making him chary of this close contact, even though he knew it was foolish. He that keeps a secret must first keep it secret that he hath a secret to keep. Before he had been too angry to accept Jim's embraces, had only gradually accepted that Jim wouldn't leave him as Blair had demanded. Now his body remembered that there was comfort and pleasure in Jim's touch, and they both had need of that. He sighed as Jim's mouth moved to his neck, and Jim smiled, and nuzzled and nipped at Blair's skin.

"Off," he said, and hoisted Blair onto his feet.

"I told you I was heavy."

"Indeed, but I think the bedroom is a better place for us now." Jim's face was flushed, and he interrupted his grand plan to hold Blair's jaw between his hands for delicate, lapping kisses at his mouth. Blair moaned, a quiet, reckless sound, and Jim stopped his attentions and took Blair's hand and led him towards the stairs. The bedroom door shut behind them and even though the outer doors were locked, and they both knew that Joel would disturb them for nothing less than the house burning down around their ears, Jim pushed the bolt home with deep satisfaction.

"Five years, and you still like my hands on you." Jim proved this assertion by letting his hands wander where he liked across Blair's body - shoulders, chest, hips, the sweet curve of arse in his grasp.

Blair rocked his pelvis against Jim's thigh. "Why not? You're beautiful. And you love me, although why is sometimes beyond me," he added bitterly.

Jim kissed the crease of frown between Blair's brows. "And if you know that then why did you expect me to leave you?"

Blair shut his eyes. "I think that you should kiss me before we start arguing again."

Faced with this threat, Jim kissed with a good will, and then with a smile, sank to his knees. "You see that you're taller than me once more." He undid the fastening of Blair's breeches and pressed his face into Blair's groin, inhaling the musk before kissing along the strong shaft that rose there.

Blair let out a long sigh. "More. Please."

"And after, I want to fuck you. I want to fuck you, Blair," Jim repeated, even though Blair hadn't denied him.

"Whatever you want. Sucking, fucking, whatever you want." Blair panted now, as Jim held his cock within his fist, stropping it with slow care. "I like your mouth as much as your hands. So give it to me and then I'll spread my legs for you."

"Yes, that's right, you will. Tell me how you want it." Jim licked once, from base to tip, and Blair whimpered. "Tell me, Blair, or no more."

Blair swallowed hard, his adam's apple jerking. Temptation indeed, Jim thought, but for later. He waited until Blair began to speak.

"On my back, on my back with my legs on your shoul - ahh, God..." Jim mouthed and sucked in earnest now, while Blair continued with his breathless babbling, his assurances that Jim could do whatever he wanted. "I'm sore after you fuck me like that, my legs, my hips, my arsehole, but while you're fucking me - it's like being touched by a god, I'll come for you again, I promise." Blair's voice broke, his only sounds now inarticulate and desperate, until Jim's mouth was filled with spunk, and his hands gripped against Blair's trembling thighs until Blair could find words again.

"Are you ready to fuck me now?"

Jim surged to his feet. "Just as you described it." He made a rough gesture. "Take off your clothes properly." Blair was still half hard, and he smiled, and stripped off his remaining clothes with speed. Jim's expression made it clear that finesse wasn't needed, and he followed Blair to the bed and watched impatiently as Blair settled himself on the mattress. Jim's eyes scrutinised every inch of Blair, skin, hair, before he leaned sat at the side of the bed and leaned down to kiss Blair, explored Blair's mouth with a tongue on which Jim could still taste how Blair had come for him. He sat upright again and delved into a drawer, took out a small bottle of oil and stroked its contents across his cock, while Blair watched, and let arousal gather in him again.

Then, Jim fucked Blair, just as he'd described, with Blair pinned on his back beneath Jim, and if Blair felt as if he were being touched by a god, that was nothing as to how Jim felt, as the sweat from his skin fell like tears onto Blair.

***

Love wasn't a word used between Blair and Jim very often, but the last night's quarrel and sex had reinforced for Blair the dangers of the knife-edge that he was walking. He reminded himself that it was precisely because Jim loved him and he loved Jim that he lay in bed reviewing his plans to help Alicia. If Jim wouldn't desert him, all the more reason to clutch at that one small spar of hope in a threatening, stormy sea.

Jim stirred, and stretched, more at ease now. Then he enveloped Blair in an unthinking hug, which Blair returned before dragging himself unwillingly out of bed.

Jim watched him with indulgent reproach in his eyes. "Setting forth once more on that quest to save my honour, Sandburg?"

The irony of saving anyone's honour out of the house of the Duke of Stavely, of all people, tickled both men's sense of the absurd.

"Exactly," Blair said.

"Are you sure there is nothing I can do to help? I have some Spanish myself."

Blair sighed in exasperation. "Jim, you can hardly blame his grace for not wanting any more people attached to this business than is necessary."

"I suppose not. I'm only surprised that his grace seems to possess a sense of shame."

"He has none," Blair said bluntly. "But he does have a sense of loyalty and a desire to protect his friends and dependants. You should understand that."

"You understand it, too." Jim watched Blair dress; the naked lover who had lain under the rumpled bedcovers becoming a gentleman respectably dressed for the streets of London. "Why not wait for Joel to bring hot water?"

"I can shave in the kitchen," Blair said. So much for the gentleman.

Joel was up, barely, and very surprised to see Blair.

"Mr Sandburg?"

"Early start today."

"So I see." Joel began to make coffee. "You attend upon the Duke of Stavely again, I take it?"

"You take it correctly," Blair replied, and busied himself with lathering a brush. There was a small fragment of mirror perched on a shelf above a table. Joel used it, it being quite appropriate for _him_ to shave in the kitchen in the mornings.

"The Duke's reputation is not good."

The lather was transferred from brush to Blair's chin. "I know that."

"This means that the reputation of those who visit his house must be tarnished."

Blair stropped his razor. Sometimes he permitted Jim to attend him but never Joel. "I've never had much reputation to lose."

"That might be true, but what of those who associate with you?"

Blair's hand kept steady, as he began carefully to scrape at his beard. "I'm sorry, Joel, if my activities bring shame on you."

Joel inhaled through his nose, and permitted himself that dangerous luxury for a servant - a show of temper before his betters.

"You're an obstinate, wilful, foolhardy man. Will you not think of Captain Ellison? He is deeply worried."

Blair blinked at his small, spotted reflection in the mirror. "I do think of Jim. All the time."

He turned to Joel, his eyes earnest above his half-shaved jaw. "Joel, I promise. My business with the Duke is nothing that will bring shame on Jim. I'm trying to prevent that, I swear to you."

Joel examined him closely. "He would be happier if he were more in your confidence."

"Will you not trust me?" Blair barked out. "I don't want harm to come to Jim any more than you do." He returned to his shaving and cursed as he cut himself.

Joel knew that Blair had certain independent tendencies when it came to servants, but he regarded his fumbling efforts to staunch the blood, and said curtly, "Sit. I'll shave you. You can hardly go anywhere if your throat is half-cut."

Blair looked briefly mutinous, before he considered the steadiness of his hands, and the thump of his heart, and obeyed. Joel shaved him quickly and efficiently, and Blair shouldered his way into his coat, jammed his hat onto his head and was gone.

Joel sighed. So much for that approach. Jim was close-mouthed always, but a close-mouthed Blair was a new thing in nature, and Joel disliked it considerably. He regarded the hot water boiling over the fire, and decided that Jim would prefer coffee before washing this morning. He had no doubt that Jim was awake.

Joel carried the tray of coffee things up the stairs and knocked. Sure enough, Jim called that he might enter. He was sitting up in the bed, and his face was thoughtful.

"Have I guessed your requirements correctly?" Joel laid the tray on the bed.

Jim nodded, his eyes lighting with pleasure at the smell of the coffee. "He's gone?"

"Yes, freshly shaved, although he'll have a scab on his chin." Joel paused. "Has he told you anything more?"

Jim's hands clenched into the sheets in frustration. "Something of his past with Stavely. And some - reassurances." A faint tinge of red coloured his face. "But of the blackmailing, and of what he's doing in his grace's house - I remain ignorant." Mockery sounded in the words 'his grace'.

Joel gravely shook his head. "He's terrified."

"You don't need to tell me that."

"Why won't he trust you?"

"He was too used to playing a lone game before he met me." Jim took a sip of coffee and sighed. "A reversion to old habits, perhaps." He tried to sound neutral about this observation, but the hurt slipped out.

Joel made no comment, except to say, "I'll bring up some hot water."

***

Blair made the journey to Grosvenor Square reviewing the situation and his tactics, and finding some vague comfort in these militarily Jim-like metaphors. He just wished that he felt that anything he might do would be effective. Knowing that Blair somehow settled Jim's senses was one thing. Knowing that there had been some sort of connection between Jim and Alicia Bannister, tied to their mutual abilities, was another. Blair remembered Alicia mocking Jim, taunting him with his dependency on Blair. So, how did Alicia manage without a guide - how did she maintain that all important self-sufficiency? The books and notes she kept suggested drugs, and mental disciplines that seemed nonsense to Blair - but then he remembered Jim's occasional tales of India, of men in ecstatic trances who drove thin metal spikes through their cheeks with no evidence of pain or bleeding.

The next consideration was what had caused the illness that drove her to seek refuge with Stavely? Had she gone to Stavely in her confusion because she was trying to court him as a patron, or had she gone to Stavely because through Preston she had known of the connection to Blair?

So many questions, and so few answers. Blair knew so little, but one thing he was quite sure of. He didn't want Jim to know that he was trying to help Alicia Bannister, who had tried to kill them both. To that end, he had bought some cheap clothes and taken them to the Duke's house, where he was shown to that nobleman's library.

"How is she?" Blair asked.

"Much the same as ever. Silent, or nonsensical, or simply not present, staring into space."

Blair fidgeted with the papers on the desk in front of him.

"I believe that her senses were over-stimulated in some manner, and so her mind has retreated from the pain of her body. The question is whether we can soothe her or not." He sighed. He had never truly had to think of how he helped Jim. Yes, the two of them together had devised ways of managing Jim's senses, accepted that Jim had various quirks about how his surroundings must be, but Blair was well aware that his own simple presence seemed to be the deciding factor. What if the same reasoning applied to Alicia? Would Blair be sufficient? Did he want to be?

"I will need to change my clothes, your grace."

Stavely's eyebrow rose. "It's true that dress can provoke considerable stimulation, but I'd not have thought what you're wearing to be so glaring to the eyes."

Blair smiled. "I have my reasons."

"Carry on, dear boy." A footman was summoned to take Blair to another room, and Blair changed into his plain set of clothes. The Duke closed his eyes in mock-distress when Blair came out. "You look like a farmer."

They walked together to the attic rooms where Mrs Carter watched her charge. She curtsied.

"Has she taken any food or drink today?"

Mrs Carter shrugged. "I can spoon a little water or broth down her, but no more than that, and half of it ends on her clothes anyway."

The Duke nodded. "We shall see what my friend here can do for her. You are relieved for an hour." Mrs Carter dropped another curtsey, and made her escape to the servants quarters below stairs.

Blair stepped forward and unlocked the door to Alicia's room. He opened it with a sense of ominous doom which was in its turn doomed to squalid anti-climax. Alicia sat huddled against the wall. She wore a filthy shift. There was the bare room, untidy as well as barren. The bed covers were strewn across the floor. The batting on the wall, put there because Alicia sometimes had a tendency to throw herself about the room, had come down again. The windows were shut, and the room smelled of sickness and stale air and stale food, and shit and piss stained linens inadequately cleaned.

Blair's nose wrinkled, and he thought of Jim's bare, but scrupulously cleaned and tidy sickroom, when he had been unwell. But then Joel had understood what he was dealing with.

"You leave Mrs Carter to her own devices, I see."

The Duke's hauteur was untouched. "And what care do you think our friend would receive in Bedlam or the poor house?"

Blair ignored him. Instead, he hesitantly stepped towards the figured curled in the corner. "Mrs Bannister?" he asked softly. "Alicia?" Probably not even her real name. She had presented herself to the Duke as Alexandra Barnes. Carefully, Blair knelt before her, and placed his hand lightly on one drawn-up knee. There was no response. Not a flinch, not a resentful lifting of her head, nothing. Blair looked at her, and then at the room around them. Never mind Alicia's condition; if Blair himself wasn't to be driven mad, then something must be done about the place.

He looked up at Stavely. "I think that you must put a couple of footmen at my disposal, your grace. But I won't let them come in." He grinned, suddenly aware of the absurd. "It would seem I am to be a scullery maid rather than a farmer." A question occurred to him.

"Who do your servants think she is?"

Stavely replied, "And why should I need to explain anything to my servants?"

Blair and he went to Mrs Carter's small anteroom. "But they must have their own ideas."

The very smallest relaxation occurred in his grace's face. "I believe that there is a wagers book in the servants' hall. Most money lies on her being a former mistress or my natural daughter. Or both, for all I know. I shall arrange your footmen."

Two servants were sent to the attics, and spent the morning ferrying dirty cloth downstairs and clean cloth and hot water upstairs. The Duke carried out matters of both business and pleasure. The former included a close examination of Blair's notes. He had come to some interesting conclusions. The path of some of Blair's leaps of thought were not clear to the Duke, which led to speculations on Stavely's part as how well Alicia and Blair had been previously acquainted; or Alicia and Captain Ellison for that matter. His enquiries had been thorough, and he had noted with some amusement that she had made attempts on the life of them both.

Blair eventually returned from his upstairs seclusion. By that time, Stavely was perusing a selection of very expensive Chinese scrolls, which were costly because they were both exquisitely foreign and exquisitely pornographic.

Blair was tired and he had smudges of dirt across his brow. "I have some observations to write, but she said nothing, barely even knew I was there." He sighed. "I've asked your servants to draw me a bath, and then I'll leave, and return again tomorrow."

"Given our friend's sensitivities, I can understand a desire for cleanliness before meeting with her, but I am nonplussed by this need for cleanliness afterwards. It confuses me."

Blair kept his attention on his writing. "As I said, I have my reasons, your grace."

Stavely rose from his chair, and stood very close to Blair, leaning down to speak softly in his ear. "I know full well that you will be keeping things from me, my dear, that your scholarly brain thinks are beyond my ken. But I do hope that you are keeping nothing of import back."

A blush rose on the back of Blair's neck, and the Duke watched this with pleasure at his own acuity, and in agreeable remembrance of past blushes that he had brought to Blair's skin.

Blair turned to face Stavely. His face was grim and his voice very nearly insolent. "How much information did your enquiries encompass, your grace?" Stavely remained very close and placed a gentle hand under Blair's set chin - time to remind his young friend who was in authority in this place.

"I know that she tried to kill both you and Captain Ellison."

"Then you will understand why I want to take nothing of that woman back to my home." Those very blue eyes stared up at Stavely, unabashed. Yes, quite grown to man's estate. And an accomplished liar.

The Duke smiled. "I shall not keep you, then from your acts of industry and cleanliness. He stood. "Damn me but I fear this house will become a hotbed of virtue."

***

Blair had taken to taking the books and his notes into the pokey attic rooms. He spoke to Alicia, inconsequential things usually, such as the weather outside, his own studies of South America; ensured that the room was always clean and comfortable. He fed her, and was slightly heartened by the way that she took food from his hands. Sometimes she sniffed at the scent of food when he brought it into the room, but she remained generally silent and still. Once, shockingly, she broke into shrieks, and scratched at her skin. He discovered a tiny fragment of lavender caught up amongst the bedsheets, but he never knew if that was the cause of her distress or not. He instituted a screen and a commode, and was delighted that she shufflingly, but silently used it - most of the time.

After four long days of this, and four days of reporting no progress to the Duke, and four days of going home to an increasingly morose and irritated Jim, Blair was nearly ready to admit defeat. He would confess all to his mother, so that she could prepare herself as best as possible. Then, he would convince Jim that America had many attractions, and they would leave before Blair had to see Jim's pinched misery at his name being bandied about the streets, or endure Stephen and Louise's reproaches for the ruin he would bring on them because of Jim's connection with the scandal. That scandal was coming, he had no doubt. Stavely had received a visit from one of the men of that first meeting, confirming that he had been asked for money. It had been paid.

Blair sighed. There was a portion of Alicia's notes that interested him. It described her time with a tribe of Peruvian natives, a people who clearly understood her gifts, and had taught her a refined use of them; the 'Chopec'. Blair had many times daydreamed of discoveries, of seeing with his own eyes proof that there were so many different ways to live than the customs and traditions of England. Alicia had that chance, and she had hated every minute of it.

He looked up from his papers. Alicia was staring at him, her eyes huge with confusion. His heart leaped with a sickly combination of hope and anxiety. What would he have to say to this woman if she returned to herself, if they looked at each other and knew themselves once more for adversaries?

"Did you see the eye?" Her voice was a wavering croak.

Blair stood, and carefully approached her. "Alicia?" he asked.

She smiled. "Alicia saw the eye and the eye saw Alicia," she quavered in sing-song. "Did Blair see the eye?"

Blair smiled weakly. She remembered who he was. "I don't understand."

"Then you're no use to me," she snapped, her voice stronger. "If you didn't see then you still belong to him." Her hand stroked over her breast through the light shift she wore.

Stavely had warned that she often spoke nonsense, but hope still flared in Blair that he might take advantage of this moment of alertness.

"Alicia, do you remember Preston? Do you remember Mulgrew's diary?"

She burst out crying. "You're too loud. You write too loud." The crying rose into a wail, and she clapped her hands over her ears. Blair gently put his hands over her wrists, and spoke as quietly and soothingly as he could.

"I'm not loud at all. I'm very quiet. Everything is quiet. Do you believe that, Alicia? Everything is quiet. You don't need to cover your ears, because everything is quiet here."

She stared at him, tears running down her face. Then her hands moved weakly and Blair let her control the movement until Blair's hands were in front of her face. She sniffed at them like a cat before a clump of catnip, and then she licked his palm, once, a tiny flick of her tongue. Blair controlled a shudder with an effort.

A more knowing smile came over her face, dirty with tears though it was. "Still belong to him, Jim, him." Then a long sigh shivered through her. "I'm tired." She muttered it like a petulant child.

"Then why don't you rest?" Blair stood, and guided her to the bed. She looked at it. Then she carefully patted and straightened the covers. Her hands and arms trembled with weakness when she was done, and then she lay on top of the covers and went to sleep almost instantly.

Blair watched her, and was preyed on by a most uncomfortable mix of pity, revulsion and fear. Alicia lay curled, thin and weak, upon the bed. The hands that had held Blair's head beneath the water strongly enough to bruise his face on the stones of the streambed were tucked vulnerably against Alicia's breast.

Still, he thought, this bare lucidity counted as an improvement, whether it was due to his presence, or his ability to create an environment better suited to a mad sentinel. Since she seemed to be sleeping peacefully, he returned to Mrs Carter's room. That stolid woman was enjoying Blair's presence, freeing her as it did from very tedious work. Blair wrote out a few instructions, which Mrs Carter would read, and sniff at disdainfully, but would follow for fear of the Duke. A thought struck him and he scribbled a request that Alicia be given charcoal and paper. And then he called for the footmen for his bath.

***

William Ellison, unlike the Duke of Stavely, took no amusement in gathering information. A man of sense, however, took no delight in ignorance, and William prided himself on being a man of sense. The accident which crippled him had forced William to become both more authoritarian and Machiavellian in his methods, but since he was a man of intelligence and force of character, both those qualities came easily to him. Since other men might resent these qualities being exercised upon them, perhaps it was understandable that the informant who told William Ellison of Blair Sandburg's visits to his grace the Duke of Stavely took an unseemly delight in being the bearer of such distressing news.

William Ellison had long ago accepted that his elder son had tastes both low and eccentric. Jim had run away from home as a common soldier. He kept a Negro as his most trusted servant, although William granted that Joel had exemplary qualities - for a servant. As for his name - James was an appropriate name for a man of his class. The insistence on 'Jim' wore at William's patience. Jim's friendship with a Jew of very doubtful antecedents was simply one more blow which must be accepted with impatient fortitude, but if that Jew chose to shame Jim that was another matter.

William had no illusions that he was capable of bring Jim to heel in the matter of Blair Sandburg; instead, he summoned his younger son.

Stephen ascended the stairs to his father's bedroom, knowing the task he would be set, and having no taste for it. But in this matter, he was in agreement with his father. He knocked, entered, and received his commission. Stephen knew that he would need reinforcements, although he said nothing of that to his father. Instead, he set out for the house of Mr Charles Spring, and Naomi, his wife.

***

"Stephen! This is a pleasant surprise. At least I hope it is pleasant. All is well with Louise?"

Naomi, now possessed of the dignity of indubitably married matronhood, had taken to wearing caps. As she was still a most attractive woman, they looked rather charming on her.

Stephen smiled, and bowed gallantly over her hand. "No, no, Louise is quite well. No, it's of your son that I have news."

"Blair?" Naomi frowned. "And what news would you have that he or Jim wouldn't deliver?"

At Stephen's wince and sigh, she gestured. "Come with me to my little salon, and tell me all." They settled themselves among the delicate furnishings and cornflower-blue and white draperies of Naomi's private room, and she called for tea.

"Now, Stephen, tell me why you are worrying me like this."

"Blair has fallen into bad company."

Naomi smiled and then apologised. "Oh, I'm sorry, but you will understand my amusement."

"I would, if the company was any other than the Duke of Stavely's."

Naomi turned so white that Stephen thought she might faint. Then she flushed and, with the same quick energy she had bequeathed to her son, she stood and began to pace.

"Stavely! Oh, Stephen, you must be wrong." Stephen made no comment that Naomi knew exactly who Stavely was. He was relieved in some ways. He had been unable to discuss with Louise his full concerns, because it was hardly fit conversation for his wife, especially when she carried their child. With Naomi, he could speak frankly.

"I'm not at all wrong, because Jim first told me of it. But now the gossip is seeping to other corners of society, and it worries me. I told Jim that Blair must be stopped, and he agreed but nothing has yet happened."

Naomi shared a look with Stephen that expressed all her surprise that Blair was acting in the face of Jim's opposition. She shook her head in puzzlement. She understood the attraction the Duke's patronage had held for the boy her son had been, but why he should risk so much now was beyond her.

Naomi could imagine many reasons that Stavely might encourage her son into his company, and all of them made her furious. She had discovered the limits of her tolerance of outrageous behaviour when a friend had enlightened her as to her son's position in the Duke's household, and they had not expanded since then. She suspected that his grace had yielded to her entreaties only because he was beginning to tire of Blair as a toy. It had not warmed her feelings towards him. "Does Jim know why Blair is involved with Stavely?"

Stephen shook his head. "Not when last I saw him. I made the evils of the situation clear to him, and he was as concerned as I. But now rumours have reached my father, and if they've reached him then rumour is travelling far too broadly for my taste."

"Blair hasn't told Jim what he's doing?" Another significant look passed between them. Naomi reached for the bell-pull. "I think that you and I should visit our dear relatives and friends, Stephen. Straight away."

***

Jim had a headache. Joel took good care of him but he had grown accustomed to Blair's presence, to Blair's gentle fingers applying a little lavender oil to Jim's temples, to Blair's voice coaxing and cajoling him out of pain and distraction. But of course, Blair wasn't here. Blair was at Stavely's house, where he spent many hours each day, and from where he returned always freshly bathed, every inch of him. Jim doubted that there was that much book dust in all of London, and between the pain of his head and the pain of his doubts, anger sat blackly in his gut.

When Joel announced the arrival of Mr Stephen Ellison and Mrs Spring, he was hard-pressed to keep his temper. He knew exactly why they had descended on him in this tandem fashion, and he had no satisfactory answers for them, any more than Blair had answers for him.

His visitors ushered into the dining room by Joel, Jim gestured. "Leave us, Joel. I don't think that we'll need any refreshments." He glowered at his brother and Naomi.

Stephen took umbrage at this elder-brother condescension and came straight to the point. "Something must be done about Blair's association with Stavely."

"Our father has received tidings uncomfortable to him, I take it."

That piece of insight did nothing for Stephen's temper. "The tidings aren't exactly comfortable to me, and I cannot believe you like them, either. For God's sake, Blair must be brought to a sense of his folly. Stavely's reputation is such that the nature of your own relationship with Blair will be brought into question. Do you want scandalmongers and blackmailers hanging on your coat-tails?"

This stung Jim. For all his loyalty and support of Blair, he feared the consequences if Preston chose Blair as his next target. He stood and turning to the fireplace, put his hand on the smooth, polished wood of the mantle.

"No, I don't. But I believe that Blair has his reasons for what's he doing."

"I don't care about his reasons!" Stephen shouted. "I won't have my wife and children shunned and subject to scandal because Blair Sandburg has his reasons for dealing with a devil like Stavely!"

"Stop it!" Naomi commanded. She put a hand on Stephen's arm. "I don't want Blair associated with that man any more than you do, but this will do no good." She spoke to Jim. "When is my son due back?"

"I don't know." Jim stared at the small fire crackling in the grate. "I don't know, Naomi."

"Well, then," she said, "we shall wait."

Jim could think of nothing worse. He didn't want these people interfering. Blair was Jim's concern. He clenched his fist, surprised at his own resentment. Stephen's own self-interest - well, Jim could and would dismiss that. That Blair's mother might be concerned was hardly a surprise; but then he thought of her meddling in the events of 1814. It was all of a piece, people coming between Blair and Jim when it was none of their business. Especially were they none of Stavely's business. If his infuriating guests had done anything, they had fixed Jim's determination that he would deal with this. Blair would explain. And if Blair wouldn't explain - well, he was no gentleman. And Jim no longer felt that he must be obliged to be one, either.

Blair, unaware of the forces arrayed against him, made his way home with his mind deeply occupied. At home was the portfolio of papers that always went with him, whether he dwelled in London or at Ashford, and in it was the recollection he had written of the dream which he and Jim had shared after Alicia's very nearly successful attempts at murder. There was no mention in it of an eye, but Blair always remembered the way he had awakened feeling as if something had been left undone. Some quiet rumination was his plan, even if he expected it at best to be punctuated by wounded glances from Jim. Whatever the miseries and anxieties of the current time, a small current of excitement ran under it, together with satisfaction that he had learned more about Jim's senses, and might make further discoveries.

He opened the door into the house and immediately heard voices coming from the dining room. Uncertainly, he stepped forward, to be forestalled by Joel, who regarded Blair with stern sympathy.

"Your mother and Mr Stephen Ellison are here."

Blair raised his hand to briefly cover his face. "Oh, God." He looked at Joel. "You may wish to retire to the kitchen, or the attics. I wish I could."

"They're waiting on you." Joel's face declared that Blair deserved whatever was in store for him.

Guilty anger ran under Blair's skin to flush his face. "Oh, I'm sure they are." He tossed his hat onto the hall table and stepped forward to battle.

"Good afternoon," he said with false good humour. "Or is it evening?" He put out his arms to embrace Naomi. "Mama. You look very pretty, even with this lace nonsense on your head." He turned to Stephen, and smiled in a broad baring of teeth. "To what do we owe the honour?"

To Jim he said nothing. Stephen and Naomi must leave eventually and then battle would be joined on a more intimate front.

"You know why we're here and that makes this funning of yours all the more offensive," Stephen answered.

"And why are you here?"

"Sandburg! Enough."

Jim took a step towards him, even as Naomi said softly, 'Blair, please, sit down."

"I don't think so." Blair surveyed his mother with her ridiculous little matron's cap on her head. She had quietened in her marriage to her kindly, boring husband, and Blair remembered their plans before Jim Ellison had come into their lives; money for an independent life, yes, but on the fringes, not thrust full into the gentry as they had been. In that life, Preston and his threats would have been an inconvenience, but no more than that, not least because no-one would have cared who Blair was, or who he mixed with. If worst came to worst, he and Naomi could have travelled, could have hidden themselves in obscurity one way or another. Instead, she was tied to Charles Spring, and eccentric and tolerant he might be, but Blair doubted he would accept scandal and blackmailers at his door with complaisance.

Stephen - Stephen had a son, and another child on the way, and he loved his gentle, sensitive wife. He'd warily accepted Blair even after he'd realised exactly what his relationship was with Jim. God knew what hold he thought Stavely had over Blair.

And there was Jim, who seemed perfectly happy to stand there in judgement with the rest of them. Blair felt a flash of irrational fury - if he'd never met Jim then Blair's adolescent follies could never have had such potential for harm. Why couldn't they leave Blair be while he attempted to remedy the situation?

He raised his hand, index finger lifted like a teacher about to give a lecture. "I know full well your concerns. And I'll tell you this once - there is nothing in my connection with the Duke of Stavely that need concern any of you." It was, in its way, a perfect truth, as well as a perfect evasion of truth. Blair met Jim's eyes, which were cold and suspicious.

"That's not good enough," Stephen said belligerently.

"It will have to be."

"Damn you! Do you want me to cut ties with Jim? Is that truly your intention, because I'll do it if I must. I care for my family even if you seem to care for nothing!"

"I care. I do care," Blair began, before his mother broke in.

"Sweetheart, if you're in some sort of trouble, we can't help you if we're ignorant. Stavely is a powerful man, I know, but..."

"Good God, Mama, if you're thinking what I suspect, then I beg you to put the idea aside. You must not approach the Duke. I forbid it absolutely."

Naomi stiffened in outrage. "You - forbid it?"

"I'm not some child to accept you meddling in my life, and if Stavely tarnishes my reputation, then he will destroy that of Mrs Charles Spring. I suggest you go home, both of you, and leave - me - be!" The last words were shouted and Blair spun on his heel and speedily left the room, horrified at the temper he had vented on his mother. It was too late now, and he strode out the door, away from the scene and Jim's disapproving, distrustful face.

The others watched him go, Naomi grieved and shocked, Stephen still furiously angry, and Jim barely less so, except his anger was settling into something calculating and frigid.

"You have a ruthless turn of mind, little brother."

Stephen had the grace to blush. "I'm sorry. But I was very angry."

Jim barely looked at him. His mind was busy with other worries. "No matter. You wish to protect what is yours. I can't blame you for that."

He turned to Naomi. "In one thing, I think that Blair is right. You should go home."

She stared at him, before shrugging her shoulders. "Has he told you how he first met Stavely?"

"That much at least, he did tell me."

"And how did he meet Stavely?" Stephen asked suspiciously, before he answered his own question. "Ah. Yes." He added viciously, "But surely Blair is too old for his grace's tastes these days."

Naomi wheeled around and spat out, "You know nothing, Stephen, and I will thank you to keep your opinions to yourself!"

Jim ignored them both. Instead he walked out into the hall. Joel stood at the end, in the doorjamb leading to the kitchen.

"I am going out. Make sure that those two don't murder each other, will you?"

"And who will make sure that you murder no-one?" Joel said.

Jim smiled, unamused. "I intend no more than some long overdue reconnaissance."

Joel smiled in his turn. "Then God-speed to you, Captain Ellison. And I had best find a bucket of water for the fighting cats."

Jim slipped quietly out of the house. Stephen and Naomi were still arguing. Another time, Jim might have winced at both the noise and high emotion, but now, he was calm with purpose. He had been a fool to let Blair go on so long alone. Whatever was happening, he would have his answers, and he need not even pass the Duke's door.

Blair had chosen to walk, still intensely angry and distressed, and needing the release of activity. He had no fear of his welcome at Stavely's house. The Duke kept his servants awake to all hours, and it was still no more than early evening. Blair was unaware of the tall man who followed him; his attention was given to shaking off some noisy pamphlet seller who attempted to wave his wares in his face. The hawker attempted to delay Jim also, and had to pick up both himself and his papers from the gutter for his trouble. Blair was too far ahead to hear his noisy imprecations by then.

He reached Stavely's house and pulled vigorously at the bell. It took some time to be answered, and Blair recognised the footman who opened the door.

"Alan. You see I am back again."

"His grace is unavailable, Mr Sandburg."

"It's not his grace that I'm here to see, but the lady upstairs."

The footman remained implacably by the door, and Blair became impatient.

"The Duke permitted me entrance at any time. What's this foolishness?"

Alan shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "I will show you to the library." He stood aside and led Blair into the hallway, but Blair wouldn't be distracted.

"Thank you, but I have no need of the library. I'll see to my charge." The footman protested briefly, and suspicion grew in Blair. He briskly climbed the stairs, intending to go to the small boxroom where his things were stored and was perhaps two storeys up when he heard a loud outcry from the attics. The voices of Stavely and Alicia Bannister rose and wove together and Blair ran the rest of the way, up the stairs and through the narrow attic passageway, past Mrs Carter wringing her hands in her apron, into the small room where Stavely was shaking Alicia like a rat caught in the jaws of a terrier.

"Strumpet! Jade!" Stavely roared. "If you are that capable, then tell me where is that accursed book." Alicia made no response except for a wailing noise of denial. Blair sped across the room, and hauled at the Duke's arm.

"Stop it!" he shouted. "Have you gone mad? Stop it!"

Stavely pushed Alicia away and turned, his hand upraised as if he would hit Blair, before he stopped, and mastered himself. A ghastly shadow of his usual calm hauteur covered his face, and he swallowed down his rage.

"If you're here then I presume you've seen it."

"Seen what?"

Wordlessly, his grace thrust his hand into the pocket of his immaculate coat and drew out a crumpled piece of paper. Blair took it and uncreased it so that it was readable.

'New tales of the modern Sodom and Gomorrah!' proclaimed the title. Under that was a rough woodcut illustration of a man and a woman embracing - no not a woman, according to the words under the picture. 'La, sir, do I not make a pretty girl for a boy?' Blair skimmed the rest of the paper, blood draining from his face, especially as he came across the words, 'Forbes was quite overcome with delight at the beauty of his boy-bride'. Desperately he read with closer attention and was nearly overcome himself in relief that the boy-bride's name was not mentioned. For that had been him, and the occasion had been one of the wilder nights of debauch, even for Stavely's hellhounds.

"What does this mean?" he asked stupidly.

"What do you think it means?" Stavely snapped. "Forbes refused to yield to Preston's threats." His hands curled into fists. "And now he has definitively put himself beyond Preston's reach."

Blair felt sick. Stavely continued. "I sent word to Forbes when I discovered these filthy pamphlets on the street. I barely had back the news that Forbes cut his throat when I discovered _this_," he indicated Alicia, "wandering my house."

Alicia snivelled. "I don't know where I am. I don't know."

"You'll be on the streets, woman, if you're to be no use to me. Along with your incompetent nurse."

"She can be no use to you if she's terrified out of her wits," Blair protested, and bent to help the cowering woman from the floor. She refused to stand and he ended crouched over her, arms across her shoulders. She was shaking.

Stavely had recovered a further measure of control. His voice was cold and sarcastic, to hide grief. "Forgive me if that slut's wellbeing is not my first concern when my poor Will is dead because of Preston." His lips pressed into a thin line. "There will be a reckoning."

Blair ignored this. "Hush," he said firmly to the crying Alicia. "There is no need for this. It's over now."

Alicia looked up. "Not over at all."

There was the thunder of running feet in the passageway outside and a red-faced servant girl dashed in. "Oh, your grace, you've got to come, come quick."

Stavely growled, "What now? Is my entire house turned over to Bedlam?"

The girl was in such an agony of excitement that she ignored any mark of respect. "Oh, just come." With a curse, the Duke left, leaving Blair and Alicia alone in the sudden quiet of the room. Not so quiet; Blair could hear the noise of shouts below. Once again he tried to lift Alicia, but she stayed huddled on the floor. "He's coming," she said, and clung to Blair's coat, laughing with delighted, giddy fear like a child contemplating the consequences of grand and fateful mischief. "He's coming."

"Who?" Blair asked. "Who's coming?"

"Sentinel," Alicia whispered.

***

In the aftermath of the summer of 1816, Jim had felt uncomfortable about his acute senses, almost betrayed by them. Alicia's peculiar influence over his body had left him humiliated and defenceless. Since then, almost without thinking, Jim had let his senses lie in abeyance, the abandonment limited only by what he couldn't quite bear to give up - an awareness of Blair's presence and the lands of his estate.

Now, he walked with apparent aimlessness around Grosvenor Square like some dandy on the strut, as he opened his hearing in a way that he seldom did in the humming uproar of London. It was harder than he had thought it might be to control and direct his hearing. All around him were distractions - the rustle of trees, the chirping of dusty sparrows, the sounds of men and women in the buildings around him. He might go even farther if he wished, be lost in the babble of the city, the rush of the river and its traffic miles from him. Instead, he drew back, and searched for Blair's voice in Stavely's house.

Instead of Blair's voice, he was drawn inexorably to another voice - a woman's voice, barely recognisable in its lack of control. He stopped, his jaw gaping in sheer astonishment, before rage leaped in him, vaulting over confusion and desperate hurt. He strode in a direct line to the Duke's door, completely ignoring the curricle that had to be drawn up before him and the curses and shouts of its driver. He banged on the front door, his hands curled into fists and pounding at the wood as if he might batter it down. Even if the Duke's staff had not been distracted by the rumours of recent disaster and the excitement upstairs, no-one could ever have opened the door speedily enough for Jim in his present mood. He opened the door, still unlocked at this time of the day, for who of the quality would walk in unannounced?

Jim was well into the hallway, looking up the stairs to the galleries above, hearing Blair's voice, but more than anything, hearing the voice of that woman. He understood nothing about why was Blair was here - with her, but in the most important way he understood everything - the secretiveness, the infernal cleanliness, the sheer depth of deceit. Unforgivable.

When Alan the footman finally made his way to answer the door, he faced a grim stranger, apparently a gentleman, and tried to bar the man's way.

"Your business, sir?" he tried to ask, but the words were only half out of his mouth before he was sprawled on the floor, watching Jim stride towards the stairs. "Hey!" he shouted uselessly. "Billy!" he yelled. "Mr Saunders!" Billy was at the next storey, lending help to two housemaids shifting furniture. He delayed Jim upon the stairs barely long enough for one of the goggling maids to dash upwards ahead of him in search of the master of the house.

Jim cared nothing for the men coming up the stairs behind him. So long as they didn't block his way to Blair and Alicia Bannister, they were of no account. The same could not be said for the man who barred his progress by standing at the last landing. He was tall, and strong-looking, but his face was pouched and lined with age. He was no serious barrier to Jim, twenty years younger and filled with atavistic fury.

"Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?" demanded Stavely.

Jim's eyes were unblinking, but he barely saw Stavely. "It may be your house, but you have something of mine. I want him back."

The Duke drew back his lips in snarling amusement. "Captain Ellison, I presume. What a day of excitements this has become."

Jim made no answer. Instead he roared, "Sandburg! I know you're there. Sandburg!"

"Captain Ellison, go downstairs. Of your own accord, or I can call men to throw you out if you wish."

"I know he's with that bitch. Sandburg!"

Sharp displeasure showed in Stavely's face, before he realised his assumption that Blair had already given away his secrets didn't explain the outrage of the man below him. Jim had slowed his pell-mell rush, but he had not truly stopped his advance. All the while, he continued, one slow step at a time up the stairs, until he stood close enough to Stavely that either man could touch.

And then Blair appeared in the passage beyond the stairs, his voice hoarse with surprise and simple horror. "Jim?"

Jim went mindlessly forward, and Stavely let him pass, if for no other reason than the imprudence of grappling with an enraged man on narrow stairs. Blair took a few steps forward and Jim stopped for him, as he had for no one else in this house - but then Blair was his goal. One of them at least. Jim lunged forward and without thought of witnesses, hauled Blair into a close embrace which contained nothing of affection. Blair struggled for a moment, and then some instinct made him be still, while Jim nosed his way through his hair, sniffed at his skin, and smelled fear and Alicia Bannister.

"What have you done?" Jim whispered. "What the hell have you done?"

"Nothing," Blair said in desperate entreaty. "Nothing. Jim. Calm yourself and listen to me." Jim released Blair to hold him at arm's length, and looked past him, to the warren of attic rooms.

Stavely stepped forward, but Blair sent a pleading look his way, and he waited, gesturing to his menservants to wait on the stairs. But when Jim began his hunter's progress down the passage once more, Stavely followed. Blair was closer and spun himself into Jim's path. "Stop! Stop! God damn it, Jim, listen to me!"

With a noise that the Duke was more accustomed to hearing from his dogs, Jim flung Blair away from him to hit the wall with a thud that reverberated against the plaster. Stavely spared no more than a glance at Blair, who collapsed white-faced and winded, before he stepped over him in pursuit of Jim, who made no delay, checked no other doors but strode unerringly to the rooms where Alicia was kept.

Mrs Carter and the serving maid, trapped in the anteroom, retreated to a corner. Jim ignored them, and threw open the inner door. There she was, his counterpart, his enemy and nightmare, and still, very occasionally, the haunter of helpless, carnal dreams. Alicia had held still against the Duke's anger, but now, she hurled herself at Jim, a sickly, hissing cat against a snarling mastiff. Jim's backhanded blow sent her to the floor, and she sobbed, "I didn't call him, I didn't. I didn't try to take him." Jim stared at her, at the thin body and lank hair, at the bare room which was tainted with Alicia's scent and to a lesser degree, Blair's.

Stavely stood at Jim's side now. "Are you quite finished with this exhibition?"

The coldness of the Duke's voice was a wintry blast to Jim's understanding. It in no way lessened his fury, but it did enable more rational awareness of the scene he stood amidst. What now? He had no intentions when he entered Stavely's house, only a driving need to see, to confirm, to - what? He hardly knew, and even in the heat of fury he had understood that Alicia was no worthy opponent. Jim stood still in utter confusion and the Duke placed himself between Jim and Alicia, who remained cowering on the floor.

Stavely and Jim were of a height. They stared, cold blue eyes into cold blue eyes, before Jim averted his gaze. "I apologise for this disturbance," Jim gritted out from between his teeth.

Stavely's mouth twitched in unwise amusement, and Jim's skin burned with shame and anger. "Permit me to escort you to the door," Stavely suggested, and Jim turned, only to be face to face with Blair once more.

Blair's eyes were huge, and he had one arm wrapped across his side. But his jaw was clenched, and there was a fury in him to match Jim's.

"Are you ready to listen now?"

Jim examined Blair's face briefly before flicking his gaze elsewhere. He could not bear to look any longer, and at this dismissal, Blair's face grew even paler.

"You could say only one thing worth listening to. And since you can hardly tell me you haven't lied from the beginning of this sorry business, there is no more to be said." The words were addressed to the wall, which was at least trustworthy in its blank solidity, unlike Blair, who had the temerity to look wounded. Jim shouldered his way past Blair and walked down the stairs, ignoring Blair's pleas to wait. Instead, flanked by Stavely's bruised and angrily wary servants, watched covertly and not so covertly by other whispering men and women, Jim left.

***

Blair's small house was quiet. Stephen and Naomi had sufficiently resolved their quarrel to leave in each other's company. Naomi was escorted back to her house and her confused and wondering husband, and Stephen returned to Louise, who informed him with great pride that she had, for once, kept down her supper.

Joel cooked himself a small meal, and attended to various little tasks. He turned in startlement when the door banged open and shut, and Blair appeared in the doorway, pale and dishevelled and a touch breathless.

"Is Jim here?" he demanded. At Joel's answer of no, Blair shook his hands in the air in frustration and despair. "Ah, damnation!"

"What's the matter?" Joel asked sharply.

"He followed me to Stavely's," Blair said, realising as he spoke that this was no news to Joel.

"And discovered nothing good of his investigations, I see."

"Don't - just don't even start. I've had recriminations enough this night."

"From Captain Ellison?"

"No, not from Captain Ellison. Are you sure he's not here? And if not here, then where is he?"

"I think that perhaps you had best tell me the whole story."

Blair swiped a hand across his hair. "I have to find Jim. I have to explain."

Joel steered him to a chair by the fire. Through his hands, he could feel fine shivers running across Blair's shoulders. He dragged another chair to the fire and said, "Begin by explaining to me."

Blair sat huddled in the chair, still favouring one side. "I suppose Jim told you why I went to that first meeting at Stavely's."

"There is a blackmailer and he is victimising various friends and associates of the Duke. And now I know as much as Captain Ellison knows."

Blair smiled mirthlessly. "Jim knew a little more than that...but never mind." He took a deep breath. He had been unable to catch his breath all that evening; he was unsure in his mind if Jim had done him an injury or whether pure fear made it so impossible to fill his lungs. "The Duke - knew somebody who might have told where the blackmailer hid his source of information, but she was sick. Mad, really. He needed help with her." Blair took another gasping breath. "Alicia Bannister."

Joel sat in thunderstruck silence until he found his voice and a modicum of his wits. "I've known you foolhardy, but I've never known you a cretin. What were you thinking to keep this from Jim? You, of all people?"

"I wanted to help. And I promised the Duke!"

Joel considered Blair's contorted face, and shaking voice. "And you wanted Jim to know nothing about that woman. Not for his protection but for yours." His hands clenched in his lap. "Blair, how could you be such a fool?"

Blair was shaking his head. "Bad enough the rest. I had to tell him some things. I didn't...I thought that if I was lucky he need never know, or at least not until it was over..."

"And the day saved."

"He wouldn't leave me, I offered that he should, you know I did. And now...he won't even look at me. Just smelled her on me and..." Blair leaned forward, head in his hands. "Oh, God, I've ruined it all, haven't I?"

Joel sighed. "I don't know where Captain Ellison might be, and now is not the time to begin enquiries. He may yet return." He looked at Blair, and realised that some of the shivering was shock and hunger. "You should eat something."

"No, I should not, I should find Jim."

"And tell him what?" Joel challenged. "I take it he is very angry."

"Yes, but he doesn't understand!" Blair made an effort to gather his thoughts. "It's not just that he's angry with me for the..." he paused and then spoke without self-deceit, " the lying. It's more than that." He leaned towards Joel, desperate to finally impart some of his new knowledge, even at the centre of disaster. "Alicia had papers, books, and she names herself, and Jim, a 'sentinel'. And I'm sure that some of his anger was something instinctual, based upon the abilities they share. A territorial thing, perhaps." Blair considered this briefly. "And so you see, maybe I was right to try and keep them apart, if what happened this evening was the result."

Joel had discussed some of Blair's studies with him. The memory of that moonlit stream where he watched Jim bring Blair back from the dead would always be with him. Now he stood. "I am out of all patience with you. If you suspected such a thing, then all the more reason to have told Jim than leave him prey to such influences with no warning or defence."

Blair gaped in outrage, before his face changed, and he shut his eyes. "You're right. How can you have seen that and I never did?"

Joel nearly replied 'Because I'm neither in love with James Ellison nor terrified of his censure', before he put out a hand. "I'll see you to bed. There is nothing we can do tonight. If Captain Ellison doesn't return, then we'll deal with that in the morning."

"I can manage on my own, truly." But Blair accepted the hand, and rose, noting that at least he could stand without excessive pain. He still winced.

"What is it?"

"I received a few bruises this evening." Blair attempted a smile. "I made the mistake of getting in Jim's way and he put me aside somewhat forcibly."

Joel shook his head. Blair had said nearly nothing of the events in Stavely's house, but Joel was skilled in reading between the lines. He didn't doubt that there had been an appalling scene, and he was as anxious for Jim as Blair was.

"Get to bed. If Captain Ellison comes in, I'll let you know."

Blair took himself upstairs, and looked around the bedroom. All was in order - Joel's doing, of course. Tears blurred across Blair's vision. He imagined this room as it would look if it were left solely to Blair's devices. Surely that would happen now. Blair had desired that Jim leave him, break ties with him. Be careful what you wish for, he thought bitterly. He half undressed, putting the things aside neatly, as Joel or Jim would do. Then he reached into the closet for his dressing gown. It was somewhat shabby now, well worn since Jim had given it to him as a gift, but now Blair needed the heavy warmth of it. He shrugged into it, and lay upon the bed, not bothering to get under the covers. He wanted no delay, not even that of pushing back bedcovers, if he heard Jim come home.

As it happened, he did not hear Jim return. Neither did Joel, uncomfortably dozing in a wooden chair in the kitchen. Jim, even as drunk as he was in those small watches of the night, moved very silently. The first that Blair knew of his presence was the shifting of the mattress beneath Jim's weight, the reek of brandy fumes, and the grip of Jim's hand across his throat.

"Jim?" It was a croak, more because of fear and astonishment than pressure. Jim's hold was uncomfortable, but didn't actually cut off Blair's breath. Jim shifted on the bed, coming closer to lay the length of his body alongside Blair's, but his hand didn't move, and Blair swallowed uncomfortably, the muscles of his throat flexing against Jim's palm.

Jim leaned close to murmur, "You kept telling me to wait and listen. I can do that now."

"In your state, I could talk until daylight and you'd remember none of it."

"I'll remember. I remember plenty already."

"Jim, I'm sorry. I didn't mean..." Blair stopped. He had meant to lie. "I meant it for the best."

"How?" Jim's lips tickled against Blair's temples. "How was getting close enough that you stink of dear, dear Alicia for the best?" His voice slurred in a drunken growl, and his free hand tugged at the material covering Blair's shoulder. "You still stink of her, and yet you wear this."

Blair stared into the darkness. He could see nothing, only feel Jim lying in threat beside him on their bed. He began to speak as quickly as he could; frightened, bewildered babble in the dark. "She was one of Preston's agents. She said she knew where Mulgrew's diary was, but then she fell ill, went mad. You saw her." He took a rasping breath, while Jim lay next to him in a haze of alcohol and anger, his hand still firmly held at Blair's throat. "The Duke, he pays agents of his own, he knew I'd learned a little Spanish, and when I went there that first night..." Jim's hand tightened at this admission, and Blair couldn't stop his own hand reaching to grab at that inexorable hold. "Jim. Please." The grip loosened, barely. "We thought she might have written something in Spanish, as a code. And then I thought that maybe there might some way to help her mentioned in the books - why else carry them when she remembered nothing else?"

The strained, quiet voice lifted into the dark room, and stopped. Jim was silent. Blair waited, but there was no speech, no question, just that anger which lay over him like a thunderhead. "The Duke swore me to silence, and there were the secrets of others, not just my own. And I wanted to help, it was my fault that your family was going to be exposed to scandal, I wanted to fix the damage I'd caused."

"And?" Jim's mouth still lay against Blair's skin, close enough to kiss, close enough to bite.

"Isn't that enough?"

Jim's hand finally lifted from Blair's throat, but Blair's breathing was not to be eased because Jim rolled over to lie upon Blair. He ignored Blair's wince and tense effort to brace his sore side and simply settled his length upon him, only slightly taking his own weight.

"And if there wasn't more," Jim said with the careful reasoning of the very drunk, "you wouldn't have asked the question." One hand moved to rest along Blair's cheek and jaw, and arrested Blair's effort to avert his face from Jim's night-sighted gaze. He lowered his head once again to place his lips against Blair's ear, and whispered with brandy-tainted viciousness, "You can tell me, sweetheart," before he moved to stare unwaveringly at Blair's face beneath him.

"Was it so wrong? To try and take back some of what she took from me?" Blair shut his eyes. To be able to look her in the face and not see her wielding a sword against him, to not hear the burble of the stream? To not remember Jim licking at her palm like a dog?

Jim's hand had moved from Blair's jaw to trace down under the cloth of his dressing-gown, his fingers stroking across hair and skin until his hand rested cupped over Blair's heart.

"And she took nothing from me?"

"You wanted her!" Blair choked it out, aware suddenly of tears trickling back across his temples to wet his skin and hair, the physical irritation an unbearable counterpoint to the pain and humiliation of this conversation.

"And when I knew what she was and turned to you..."

"You still wanted her. Why the hell should I have let you anywhere near her?"

"You didn't trust me. You let me imagine God knew what every time you went to Stavely. Chose her over me."

"No, no, Jim, that's anger and that damn brandy talking. I never chose her over you, never, I swear." Blair had lain still until now, fearful of provoking Jim in this state, but now he struggled to lift his arms to embrace him. "You stink of it, why did you do that to yourself?"

"Why do you think?" Jim muttered in exhaustion, and dropped his head to lay it beside Blair's.

They lay like that for long minutes, unmoving, until Blair could no longer tolerate the enveloping, smothering weight. "Jim, I can't breathe." With a grunt, Jim rolled at least partly to the side, enough that Blair had some hope of moving if he needed. Shortly, rasping, drunkard snores sounded, and Blair carefully, very carefully, shifted out of Jim's reach and got out of bed.

He walked downstairs, to find Joel by the fire. The small clock over the mantle proclaimed it twenty-three minutes after four.

"He's back," Blair said, "and I hope excise was paid on the brandy he drank, for His Majesty's government has lost a great deal of revenue otherwise."

"He's drunk?" Joel exclaimed.

"Very drunk. He will be disgusting to himself and everyone else when he wakes, so I suppose we'd better ready ourselves now." Blair's arms hugged across his torso. "And I had best wash. I neglected it on my return from the Duke's."

***

Morning brought confirmation of Blair's prophecy. Jim was ill and morose and disgusted with everything about himself, from the vile sickness and nausea to his recollections of the day before. He had behaved like some savage, bursting in to trespass and assault. His disgust with himself was only partly relieved by the distraction of his disgust and anger with Blair. If Blair had told him the truth everyone might have been spared this portion of distress at least. But no, Blair must play his lone game.

At Joel's insistence, Jim had examined Blair's ribs. He had never before run his eyes and hands over Blair's body with such a total lack of pleasure, while Blair sat with both his eyes and mouth shut. Jim had declared that the injury was no more than bruising; indeed he felt a dark pleasure at the marks mottling Blair's side and back. There was part of him that would be delighted to throw Blair against another wall given any small excuse. He was close to regarding Blair's escape to his library as just that excuse, especially when the scratching of his pen seemingly reverberated across the house. Jim's newly opened senses were another misery to lay at Blair's door.

When the doorbell jangled, with a noise that Blair ignored, and Jim winced at even from the upstairs, Joel went to answer it in no good mood. He didn't know the man who stood upon the step, a tall man, perhaps sixty, with an eagle's face blurred by dissipation.

"Tell Mr Sandburg and Captain Ellison that Edward Fitzcharles wishes to see them."

Joel regarded this man for a few seconds, before he stepped aside. "Please enter, your grace."

Stavely grinned. "And so much for my efforts at incognito." Joel merely nodded his head in the most correct manner possible, and overcome with a petty desire for revenge after the alarums of the last night, did not lead the Duke to the dining room, but instead walked to the library door, opened it and announced with great dignity, "The Duke of Stavely."

Blair's astonishment and the subsequent ink spillage went unremarked but not unnoticed, and Joel bowed, and said, "I shall advise Captain Ellison of your visitor," and withdrew.

Blair ended with having to wipe the worst of the stains on his shirt front, which disadvantage only added to the deadliness of his temper. It was an old shirt at least, put on in anticipation of Jim being as ill as he had indeed been. "Your grace," he said shortly.

"Blair. I thought that I would enquire and ensure that all was well after last evening's excitements."

"Perfectly well."

"I am glad to hear it." Stavely sat himself in the comfortable chair by the fireplace, his legs in their glossy boots stretched out over the rug. "I've had time to think since last night, and I'm quite convinced that I should be even more angry with you than I was then."

"Your grace..."

"My dear boy, the more I consider it the more shocked I am at the desertion of your wits. Captain Ellison is one of these 'sentinels' that Alicia's writing describes, is he not? The shrewdness of some of your guesses about her papers no longer impresses me, since clearly you had prior information."

"I kept your secret, your grace, to my cost. There was no reason that you had to know mine." Blair had remained standing all this time. He was wondering if he could get Stavely out of the house before Jim came down, and he silently cursed Joel.

"Don't toy with me, Blair, and don't waste your time hiding in your inkpots. If Ellison will only agree to it, he might be invaluable."

"He must agree first, and I doubt somehow that he will do anything at my behest." Blair's voice was bitter, but Stavely was pitiless.

"You have made a mull of it, haven't you, child? No matter, Captain Ellison is no Alicia to be unable to understand his opportunities."

"And which opportunities would these be?" Jim walked in, unannounced, but unlike Blair, perfectly correct in dress. His grooming couldn't hide the signs of the previous night's debauch - he was pale and haggard, and grey shadows sat underneath his eyes.

"Blair with his ink, and you with something stronger, I see. Are you ready for some rational thought?"

Jim took one step forward, before he restrained his anger. "Why are you here?"

"Money, reputation - these things are not quite the same as a man's life. I received news yesterday, before your so charming call, of the suicide of a dear friend of mine. Preston has raised the stakes and I need all the help I can get."

"How can I help?" Jim asked doubtfully.

"You have already helped in your way. After last night, dear Alicia's wits wandered a little closer to home. She fears you, and your anger, and begged my protection. I told her that the price of it was Mulgrew's diary, and this time she appeared to take my meaning." Black anger showed briefly in Stavely's eyes. "Despite that she is still playing some crazy game of her own and refuses to speak. Perhaps fear of you may loosen her tongue, Captain Ellison; or maybe Blair's kindly manner and youthful charm will do the trick."

"No." It was out of Jim's mouth without thought.

Stavely frowned in affected injury. "No? To which part of my proposal, pray? Or is this a blanket dismissal? And when I had not even completed my offer."

"I..." Jim cast a sour glance at Blair, who returned his look warily. "Mrs Bannister has malicious streak. Mad or sane, there is no guarantee that she will ever tell you the truth."

"We must take that chance. Preston owns two houses, and has access to who knows how many bolt-holes. I don't even know what Mulgrew's damned journal looks like. I could hire the most skilled cracksman in London, but he would be no use if I can't give him this information." The Duke smiled thinly. "Or I could employ you, Captain Ellison. You may not have Alicia's experience, but I suspect that you share many of her talents."

"Oh no." It was Blair's voice, in flat declaration. "I don't think so."

Jim quelled his protests with one stern look. "You've done enough thinking for now." He turned back to Stavely. "Even if I agreed to your suggestion, we still need information."

"Yes. And to that end, I wish to take Blair back to Grosvenor Square with me. He had made some progress with my guest. And we could hold you in reserve, the heavy artillery as it were."

Blair stepped forward in considerable agitation. "Your grace, I must speak to Jim in private. We must withdraw."

Stavely took in the sight of the two men, and was amused despite himself. At first sight, so very different the pair of them, but alike in one quality at least, he suspected, and that was stubbornness. "But of course, my dear. And change your linen while you're about it."

Jim bowed. Blair ignored this nicety and left the room heading for the stairs, where he rounded on Jim.

"You cannot be taking that seriously?"

Jim shrugged. "If you can coax the book's whereabouts out of her, then I'm a more than logical choice to retrieve it. I would be competent and trustworthy after all." These words were delivered with a venom that made Blair flush. "Just think, Sandburg, if you had used that scholar's brain before now, the Duke might have already had his grand idea, and we would all be safe and the Duke's friend still alive."

Blair stood very still under this barrage of words. "I will change my shirt."

"You do that," Jim said.

Blair turned and miserably walked up the stairs. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, as he reached the top.

Jim made no reply to that. "I will entertain our guest until you are ready." Then he returned to the library.

Stavely sat with his hands steepled under his chin, pressed against his breast. "I twitted Blair about his sedate domesticity, but now that I have seen his menage, I believe I might have under-rated you all. I should be grateful to Alicia for the diversion that she's brought me."

Jim said nothing to this, except to enquire, "How ill is Mrs Bannister?"

"You saw her yourself, yesterday." Jim's face remained completely, sternly blank, even as mixed emotion seethed within. "Better than she was, better enough that I believe that she is beginning to scheme, albeit in the way that madwomen do such things. I held speech with her, after a fashion, last night. She went on strange tangents on occasion, but she was coherent. It's more than I've had out of her before."

"Who is the blackmailer? If Bannister tells us where the book is, what sort of man have we to deal with?"

"Preston is gentry, much like you, Captain Ellison." The Duke smiled with mendacious charm. "An old family, and enough money, but quite without your physical advantages. To be frank, he looks like a miscarried sheep. He stood on the fringes of my acquaintance, many years ago now." The Duke's voice held amusement and distaste twisted together, and Jim made a leap of intuition.

"Hell hath no fury like a Preston scorned?" he asked.

Stavely smiled. "Oh, quite. Only it wasn't our persons or our hearts he loved, but the notoriety of our company. I believe that being a rich country squire bored him quite to the bottom of his wizened soul. He would have liked to be wicked, but we blackballed him - in our way. And he ever nursed grudges. I should be surprised if this was his first assay of malice, but it's a tricky business to enquire of one's acquaintances if they've been blackmailed."

"If Preston has run with others with tastes like yours, then he must have obtained many opportunities to exercise his malice."

Stavely did not rise from his chair, but his voice flicked out like a whip. "Hypocrisy, Captain Ellison, when you regularly fuck Blair, and I don't doubt that you do. You look a commanding sort of man. You amount to no more in the eyes of the moralists of this world than I."

Red fury passed through Jim, before he was forced to admit that there some small justice in the observation. He swallowed down anger, and bodily sickness besides. The brandy still made its effects known. "So be it. Since the moralists must be confounded, I will not fight with you."

Stavely's mouth twitched upward in a thin smile. "Indeed, confusion to the moralists, and damnation to the blackmailers who feed their delighted disgust."

Jim walked to the door and opened it, glad of an excuse to turn away from Stavely. Blair was coming down the hall, decently dressed. He entered the room without looking at Jim.

"I'm ready, your grace."

"So I see, my dear. Let us away, then, much as it breaks my heart to end this conversation with Captain Ellison."

Blair looked between the two men, and shook his head. He knew the look of Jim in a suppressed fury, and he knew Stavely at his most provocative.

"There's no need to end our conversation, your grace," Jim said. "I will come with you and Blair."

Blair stood stock-still. "Why?" he blurted.

"I'm curious." Jim's voice was clipped. "And if his grace feels the need to draw up his heavy artillery, then he need not fear delays."

"Jim, she'll know you're in the house."

A grim smile stretched Jim's face. "So she will. But I'm sure that you can comfort any fears she might have."

Blair looked to Stavely, but no protection came from that quarter. The Duke bowed his head in ironic agreement. "By all means, let Captain Ellison accompany us. By my invitation."

***

Stavely was a man of strange humours. His whimsies either endeared him to or disgusted his associates, and fifteen years ago the spark of impish mischief in a man so many years his senior had been only one of the qualities that had held a young Blair Sandburg in thrall. Jim possessed his own sense of humour, but even at the best of times he would have disputed Stavely's taste in funning. Crammed into a hackney with Blair and Stavely, still simmering with bitter anger and humiliation, and anxious for the future on all fronts, was not the best of times. Blair sat between the two men, ostentatiously a buffer, and Stavely sent one amused glance Jim's way, indicating a mild pleasure at the enforced close contact. Jim seethed, and did his best to maintain some sense of perspective. It was difficult when Blair's former lover was undressing Blair with his eyes with the sole aim of setting barbs under Jim's skin. Neither apology nor forgiveness had been broached for Jim's invasion of Stavely's house.

Jim's first action in the Duke's house was to request to see the books and papers and Blair's notes. He knew there must be some, it wasn't in Blair's nature that there not be any. "You'll grant that I'll have a different perspective to you, Sandburg. And besides, if I know you there'll be interesting speculations to be found."

Blair shrugged. He wanted very much to say no, because Jim's high-handedness was eroding his spirit of penitence. However, it was hard to gainsay the truth of Jim's remarks. If he were to be part of this venture, then he ought to know what Blair had discovered. And now that Jim knew all, Blair could consider asking Jim questions, putting together hints and ideas that he hadn't dared commit to paper so long as they were in the Duke's keeping. He'd suspected that the Duke would read his notes in his absence. Stavely's hints that he had done so had irritated Blair but not surprised him.

Blair stored the notes in his boxroom, which was locked, and led Jim there, and watched while Jim settled himself at the little table and began sorting through it all.

"I'll continue to do as I've always done," Blair said. "With a change of clothes and bathing, I mean. You don't need me bringing Alicia's scent back to the house."

Jim shrugged, his back three-quarter turned away. "It seems sensible." Then he stiffened and Blair said sharply, "What is it?"

"Someone doesn't approve of my presence here. I hope you haven't been leading on that unfortunate woman."

Blair struggled into the old clothes he wore when he saw Alicia, awkward with worry and anger. "Never fear, she cannot sue for breach of promise."

Once dressed, he approached Jim, stiff with a dignity that became slightly bereft as Jim refused to turn or look at him.

"Are you sure this is wise? Who knows what sort of influence the two of you might have upon the other."

Jim's hand rested on a paper covered with Blair's writing, which was nearly a scrawl as Blair had struggled to express the ideas which had clamoured in his head.

"I don't trust her. Ill or well, she's dangerous."

"Yes. Well, I will go and see the nature of this improvement." Blair laid a hand on Jim's shoulder for just a moment, before he left to make his way upstairs.

Alicia sat on her bed, her knees drawn up to her chin. It was a posture of petulance rather than vulnerability, despite the bruise which mottled her cheek and jaw..

"I don't want Jim here."

Prudence barely restrained a retort of 'Neither do I' from Blair's lips. As it was not yet even twenty-four hours since a miserably drunken Jim had held his hand against Blair's throat, discretion and sorely-tried affection prevailed against the small disloyalty.

"He won't harm you. How do you know he's here?"

A familiar, feline smile sent a cold jolt through Blair.

"I feel better now. It's easy to listen."

"The Duke said you felt better. Do you understand what he wants of you?"

Alicia giggled. "A change from what most men want of me. What of you, pretty Blair? Or dear Jim..."

"The diary, Alicia. If you feel better, than you can think clearly. And you know that the Duke will be grateful to you if you help him."

Alicia frowned. "Perhaps other men might be grateful."

"Was Preston grateful? I don't think he was grateful enough, or why would you have approached the Duke?"

"Preston is a cock-sucking turd."

"I don't doubt it," Blair said dryly, startled by the sudden venom.

"How is Jim, sweet Blair?"

"He is well enough. What of Preston, Alicia? What of Mulgrew's diary?"

Alicia stretched her legs out on the bed, skinny shanks poking out from beneath the hem of her shift. "He would keep well, of course. Pride goeth before a fall." She heaved a deep, tired sigh. "I am too thin, am I not?"

"Yes," Blair replied. "Yes, you are."

"Then perhaps I should eat more. Would you feed me, sweet Blair?" It was a blatantly sexual invitation.

Blair restrained irritation. An Alicia well enough to tease and taunt would hardly calm Jim and did little for Blair's serenity, either. "You are quite well enough to eat by yourself."

Alicia threw herself back on her mattress and stared at the ceiling. "God, I am so tired of everything tasting foul and smelling foul."

"Must it be that way? You managed for a long time without trouble. Why can you not control your senses now?" It wasn't a question Blair had asked her before, but with this marked improvement he thought it could do no harm to try.

"Pride goeth before a fall." She turned her head and smiled, her eyes looking past Blair. "Does it not, Jim? I trusted too much to the grasses of the meadow, and you trust in Blair. Which of us is more mistaken, I wonder."

"That's enough. Why not say where the diary is?"

"Because I don't have to."

Blair took a breath of frustration. "The Duke may simply choose to turn you out."

"Or have me throttled and thrown into the Thames in a sack." Alicia giggled. "Cockles and mussels alive-oh." The humour disappeared from her face like chalk rubbed off a slate. Blair looked behind him to see Jim in the doorway. Alicia did not move, but lay upon the bed, her eyes following Jim's every movement as he stepped forward into the room and crouched on the floor beside the bed. His eyes were intent, a snake charmer's face watching a particularly large cobra rise from its basket.

Alicia lay tense, but a humourless smile masked whatever emotion she felt. "Jim."

Jim inclined his head. "Mrs Bannister."

"You have me at a disadvantage." Alicia's hands waved across her shift - clean but still only a shift.

"I am glad of it."

"Unkind. Unkind, Jim. Come to make sure that I don't steal your guide?"

"I doubt that you'd be capable of it," Jim replied. "Of the act, that is; I make no comment on your moral capacity."

"You weren't so sure of it yesterday." Alicia's fingers dabbed at her bruised face, and her voice was that of a hurt child.

Blair was unsure what to think. That she was still truly unwell in body, he was sure. But now he found himself wondering how far she was mad still and how far she was playacting - for amusement, for scheming. If she had behaved like this before the Duke yesterday then Stavely's rage was understandable. Jim's eyes narrowed; he shared Blair's suspicions, and Alicia's barb had found its target.

"I've been forced to know my bounds, Mrs Bannister. Make sure that you know yours. You have his grace's protection now, but what chance would you give yourself before the magistrates if it were withdrawn ?"

"Judge and thief-taker both, Jim? But the fine people of society will pronounce upon you and Blair, if Preston has his way. And he won't care."

"You hate Preston." Jim said it with utter certainty.

"Oh, yes." Alicia leaned up on her elbow, and focused her eyes upon him with a lover's attention. "Let me tell you something that you may find useful. Preston is superstitious. He collects folk-lore, all the better to feed his own fears. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. He thought I couldn't listen, then." Her voice became sing-song. "He thought wrong."

The gaze between the two of them became very nearly unblinking and, unnerved, Blair stood and approached where Jim crouched by the bed. At the pressure of his footstep against the floorboards, Jim rose. "Never fear, Sandburg. I'd not want to fuck that sickly, scrawny thing." He left. Alicia looked venomously affronted and then she saw Blair's heavily flushed face and burst into wild laughter, which ended in whooping coughs as she overtaxed her lungs and throat. Blair left the room far more impetuously than Jim and watched Jim's back as he walked down the stairs past Blair's boxroom study. "Jim?" he called.

"I'll be in the Duke's library, Sandburg."

Blair yelled out more loudly than he needed for a footman and the customary bath. Then he fled to the little boxroom, well aware that Alicia was likely capable of discerning his distress despite the distance between them, as was Jim. Alicia was the one insulted. So why did Blair feel hot and cold with humiliation and fury? He tried to gather his thoughts, and while he waited on water he wrote a few more notes; but they were useless, groping thoughts, because it was too hard to look back on that scene with a scholar's cool eye.

He purposely added more cold water than usual, sought to distract himself with goose-bumped skin. However antagonistic they might be, Jim and Alicia had connected in some way. Whether it was some atavism or merely Alicia playing games, he didn't know. He dressed and washed and walked downstairs to face Jim.

Stavely was nowhere about. Jim stood by the great desk, his fingers tracing the curves and curlicues of the carving in the wood. He didn't hear Blair enter, and started slightly when Blair spoke.

"Did you have to bring that up in her presence?" He prayed that Alicia wasn't still listening. He suspected that Jim would be capable of such a thing, so why not her?

Jim frowned. "The question was all over you, and it was an honest answer, however she tries to flaunt her body or her words."

"I know, but..."

Jim looked side-long at him. "I wasn't thinking. There have been humiliations enough. My apologies."

Blair was uncomforted by this stiff, stranger's contrition, but he let it pass. "I wish that she would say something more to the point. It's all well enough to know that Preston is superstitious, but what good does it do us?"

"What good does what do?" It was Stavely. "Is my guest remaining obdurate? How fortunate for my temper that I kept my distance, then."

"We are no wiser as to what we need to know. But apparently, Preston is superstitious. And regards Mrs Bannister as a witch." Jim shrugged, before his head jerked like a startled stag's as Stavely burst out laughing. He calmed soon enough.

"Ah, I shouldn't find such things amusing. And if she is a witch, then you are surely a warlock, Captain Ellison." Stavely's face grew thoughtful. "I think that I will essay my very best honeyed tones this evening with the dear lady. Perhaps, she is merely awaiting an opportunity to impress me with her politic cunning." He lifted his head, a ruthless light in his eyes. "Let us hope so." Stavely smiled at Blair. "You finished with her early. Is she uncommunicative or insupportable?"

"The latter," Blair replied.

"Then you practitioners of the dark arts are readying yourselves to leave?"

Jim nodded. "Yes." He didn't look towards Blair, but edged closer to him.

"And I will see both of you tomorrow?" Stavely's eyebrow rose in ironic enquiry of Jim.

Blair shook his head, a gesture of exasperation. "I think it entirely likely, your grace."

"Then fare you well until then." The smile Stavely had for Blair was more genuine. "Consider me tonight, my dear, happily accepting that I am at a zenith of depravity. Besides all my other sins, I may add consorting with witches to the list. My cup of joy is full." With a cheerfully malicious look towards Jim, he kissed Blair briefly upon the forehead. It was impossible to not see the twist of fury that passed across Jim's face.

On the journey back to Blair's house, Blair tried to pour oil on troubled waters. "He likes his own way, the Duke, regardless of what offence he may cause."

Jim found the view of dingy streets to quite rivet his gaze. "As an old... friend of yours, his grace no doubt feels entitled to affectionate gestures."

"I'm sorry, Jim. I know he did it solely to irritate you."

"Then he succeeded."

"Not that this is a difficult achievement," Blair said.

Jim clenched his jaw. "You cannot be surprised by that. I see little about me that is pleasant."

Blair turned his head away. Jim knew that Blair had mistaken his meaning, but his temper was on too much of an edge to explain. He felt split in two. There was a man, a just man, who understood that Blair had made a mistake, but with good intentions, and that Blair's own strange kind of honour had been hurtfully strained and twisted; this Jim understood that his continued refusal to acknowledge Blair's apologies, his distance and sharp tongue were frightening and wounding Blair. But there was another man, a creature with that new name of 'sentinel' and all that man understood was that the person who belonged to Jim, who must always be with him and beside him, Jim's guardian, his solace, his beloved, had allied himself with her, and had put loyalty to another man before Jim.

Jim barely had the capacity to be civil, let alone reassure Blair that this was a storm that would pass, would surely pass. Whatever Jim's anger, he couldn't envisage his life without Blair in it. But, Christ, he would be glad when this business was over. He was too tied in his thoughts to realise he spoke that last aloud, and so he made no note of Blair's silence.

The slow trip through London streets completed, Jim was aware as never before that he was in Blair's house. Legalities were one thing; Ashford was Jim's, the London house was Blair's; but there had ever been an easy movement between those boundaries. Now, with the memory of Alicia Bannister crawling over his skin, Jim felt that he was in the wrong place, an unfriendly place, and he couldn't shake off the idea, however ridiculous it was.

"I will use my own bedroom tonight."

Blair had been putting away his coat and hat, and he delayed turning to face Jim. When he did, he wore a politely disinterested mask. "As you wish."

Stupid disappointment sliced through Jim, along with a spike of anger. Blair had not been so agreeable about Jim's isolation the last time they had dealt with that other sentinel - but of course, that time they had been united against her; Blair had not been consorting with her, knowing what she was. Jim gathered up a few necessities - this was not a job to hand over to Joel. Indeed, he recognised his unwillingness to advise Joel of the changed arrangements as shame, but he couldn't help himself. Despite Blair's precautions, Jim couldn't lie next to him and know that he would search for Alicia's scent on him.

His own room was in this house normally no more than a space with which to maintain appearances, and keep his clothing. Jim slept fitfully in the empty bed, and determinedly kept his unruly senses within bounds. Even so, he knew that Blair was restless and unsleeping far into the night.

When Joel discovered Blair in the morning, huddled under the velvet dressing gown and uncomfortably snugged into the library chair, he sighed at this new tier of trouble. Jim was not the only one who would be grateful when this business was over.

***

The Duke of Stavely was a satisfied man, and when his fellow-conspirators arrived at his home the next day they quickly noticed his good mood.

"You have news, your grace?" Blair asked, carefully keeping himself out of the way of any gestures of affection. Stavely was too pleased with himself to indulge petty spite upon Jim, and he smiled broadly.

"Honeyed words, dear boy. They have their purpose, or at least my pride insists on that rather than that my guest has abandoned pointless games. She is willing to discuss strategy - time, place and the disposition of the enemy. She had her price of course - you must restrain your magisterial inclinations, Captain Ellison."

Jim frowned. "She deserves to swing," he said in clipped tones.

"By a general interpretation of the law, so do you and I, Captain Ellison, and likely dear Blair there as well, for I doubt that he has only ever been - how shall I put this - a receptive partner. I grant you that as a man of property I look more kindly upon sodomy than robbery and murder, but we can hardly expect Mrs Bannister to put her pretty head in a noose when she has the price of our silence."

Stavely's casual assumption of his right to speak of sexual intimacies made Jim's jaw clench once more. "If I were not fully aware of that, she'd be inside Newgate already."

"You do not have to enjoy the prospect of her freedom. Let us merely refrain from speaking of rope in the house of those likely born to be hanged. And now, we had best go up, and speak to our new conspirator. She has been very busy."

The three men climbed the stairs; Stavely still self-satisfied, Jim tense but purposeful, and Blair hanging behind. He was tired, and had a crick in his neck, and desperately wished that Jim was less forbidding in his manner. Yes, he had dealt with Jim in such moods before, but never before with the awareness that Jim's anger was aimed directly at him. That awareness made Blair's tongue clumsy with nervousness, made his heart thump, made Blair examine every approach to Jim that he could think of and then dismiss them all as inadequate.

Alicia sat up in bed. She looked gaunt and shadowed under her eyes. A wrapper primly covered her shoulders, and much of her was hidden by bedcovers. A more precise tableau of respectable invalidism could hardly be imagined, except for the sheaves of paper scattered about the bed.

"Don't talk to me, don't talk. I have to finish this," she muttered. The charcoal in her hand flew across the paper for several minutes more. It wasn't hard to give her the peace she requested. Stavely picked up some of the papers and handed them gravely to Jim.

"Your intelligence, Captain Ellison."

There were portraits - rough but recognisable with names scribbled underneath. 'Wilson, the butler, likely to be scared into an apoplexy', 'Mary, the cook, half deaf, should sleep like the dead but will scream fit to wake them if you do disturb her.' One was of a man with broad, pleasant face and a sailor's beard. 'Jacks. Preston's bully boy. Will cut a throat and sleep in peace after.'

There were pictures of rooms, a view of a house and a garden. "There!" Alicia said triumphantly. Blair was closer to her, Jim being engrossed in the papers, and Stavely's low murmured comments. He took the paper from her outstretched hand. "What is this?" he asked.

"It's the fittings in the mantle-piece that open a secret compartment. No strongbox for Preston. He has read far too many novels of intrigue and trickery."

Jim turned and spoke, a frown of distaste on his face. "Sandburg, you don't need to be here."

"What? But I could..."

"You don't need to be here." Jim's voice was implacable. Blair knew that Stavely would intervene, might even prevail, if Blair only indicated he needed his support. But what did it matter?

"As you say," Blair snapped, and left. He looked over his shoulder as he turned towards the hallway. With Alicia willing and able to help - yes, all this business would be over and done with soon.

Blair's feet were loud enough on the wooden stairs that even Stavely was sure that he was out of ear-shot, let alone the two sentinels.

"Was that wise?" he enquired. "The more minds and thoughts, the better at this point, surely?"

Alicia laughed, a full-throated, more calculated noise than she had been capable of before.

"I am a thief, your grace. Captain Ellison looks to keep his treasures out of my reach."

"You couldn't take him if you chose."

Alicia's face was calm, but a febrile mischief shone from her eyes, and not all Jim's own narrow-eyed blandness could deflect its force.

"So you say." Her voice lowered to a gentle croon. "But you and I, Jim, we itch at the tiniest touch of instinct, and instinct tells you that I ought to want him just as much as you do." She shrugged. "My medicines are all gone or tainted, now. How else regain my strength but with a guide? And yours would do as well as any."

Jim's calm became something merely empty of thought. He took one step forward and then stopped, staring nonplussed at Stavely's hand gripped across his outreached forearm, creasing fabric, pinching at Jim's flesh.

Stavely's distaste twisted his mouth. "Whatever else the two of you are, I judge you are both fools, albeit of different sorts. You do Blair a disservice, Captain Ellison. And you, madam," contempt poisoned his tones, "had best remember that you will not leave here until I have Preston's diary. And I doubt that Captain Ellison can successfully plan its retrieval if you continuously provoke him to rage."

Alicia looked unconcerned by her miscalculation. "I trust that Captain Ellison will forgive my conjectures." She shut her eyes, a night of hasty, excited work telling upon her. "You know what I know. What more is there?"

Jim sat upon the small wooden stool which more usually propped Mrs Carter, and tiredly leaned his elbows upon his thighs.

"I know what you have seen. And I will watch Preston's house before I go in. But there is always more. How I will enter, places in the house to avoid, whether Preston keeps dogs - any number of things."

Alicia smiled, and stretched her legs sensuously under the covers. "I am at your disposal, Captain Ellison," she purred. Jim restrained, barely, a desire to strike her smug, pallid face.

***

Blair resented exceedingly the way that his mind failed him on occasion. All his life he had been capable of losing himself in his thoughts, in a book. His active brain had been his entertainment and his refuge, but just when he most desired distraction he couldn't find it. He sighed, and looked over his notes, and then stared around him at the tiny confines of the box-room, the whitewashed plaster and the window with its cracked twisted putty. There had been an idea he had been nurturing, something to do with territory and possession, its greenery grafted onto the beginnings of ideas he'd had when Alicia Bannister had first disrupted Jim and Blair's peace. But the idea now was sickly and tangled; like everything else in his life, it seemed.

He was afraid, very afraid. He stood and stared out the tiny window, to a dismal view of dirty yards separated by brick walls. See what lurks behind the fine facades, he thought.

Jim and he had fought before now. He knew that Jim's temper was twisted by anger and anxiety and whatever effect Alicia Bannister had upon him. He sighed and leaned his forehead upon the cool glass. There had been much to anger and concern Jim recently: Blair's confession of his past with Stavely and the threat of Preston; the crossing of their paths with Alicia and Blair's efforts to keep that from Jim. He shuddered. It was a mighty burden of irritation and for all the sweetnesses that Blair had discovered in Jim's nature, Jim had never been an easy-going man.

Blair _was_ an easy-going man. It was, he considered, a virtue given his life. To be able to put aside slights and disappointments and try again, to be able to find joys and pleasures in small things, to accept that life wasn't always as you wanted it - Blair had cultivated that attitude, even though he had still schemed and held ambitions for himself and his mother. What he had with Jim was an ambition that had never entered his dreams until fate gave it to him.

Had the fuller revelation of Blair's past, Blair's deceits, given Jim a disgust of him? When all this was over, would Jim seek the cleaner air of Ashford without Blair? 'Except that he cannot keep well without you,' he reminded himself, and felt panic. Jim tied to Blair when he didn't want him - he couldn't bear the thought. Or perhaps Jim would discuss her drugs and disciplines with Alicia. He suspected Alicia had been immoderate in some way - it struck him that it might be in her nature. Jim, a more restrained man, might well manage better.

"Don't borrow trouble," he said out loud. There was, God knew, enough of it already. He returned to his rickety table until a rap at the door and an impatient, "Sandburg?" interrupted the poor flow of thought.

"Yes," he called, "I just have to sand these. Come in, Jim."

Jim surveyed Blair fiddling with paper, ink and sand with a jaundiced eye. Discussing housebreaking tactics with Alicia had worn at him in more ways than he knew how to count.

"You've been busy."

"I was forced to find occupation, since I was barred from your council of war."

Jim made no comment to this, simply jerked his head in the rough direction of the stairs. "I'm going out. You may wish to return home."

"Going out? Where?"

Stavely was in the hallway.

"Captain Ellison and Mrs Bannister will enjoy a carriage ride together."

"Reconnaissance," Jim said.

"And I will come with you," Blair said determinedly. Jim's face set in obstinate lines. "Jim. You know you tend to lose yourself when you set out to use your senses." Blair paused as he realised how this was an old memory, an older association, that he hadn't seen Jim explore his senses for a very long time; but it was still true.

Jim looked away in thought, and then reluctantly agreed. "Very well."

Blair's smile lit his face. Another time, there might have been some exuberant expression of pleasure, but mindful of Stavely's presence in the hall and Alicia's presence upstairs, he limited himself to running a fervent but gentle hand across Jim's back.

"I have arranged the hire of a plain carriage; it should be here soon," Stavely said. His eyes marked the postures of the two men before him. Jim stood in tense awareness. Blair looked merely tired, and Stavely could see foreshadowings of what he would look like when the end of youth became the beginnings of age. "A drink, gentlemen, and some food, perhaps? Nothing formal, just bachelor bread and beef."

Blair smiled. "I am hungry. Something light would be a comfort. And you must be hungry, Jim, surely."

Jim looked briefly confused, as if hunger and food were alien concepts, before he nodded. "Food would be useful, yes."

True 'bachelor' bread and beef would have been the heartbreak of Stavely's cook. There was instead an exquisitely seasoned cold pie, crusty rolls and a good claret, finished with hot house fruit. All three men ate sparingly.

Alicia came down to sit with them at the end of the meal. Jim's head had lifted and he had followed the halting sound of her traverse down the stairs until she appeared in the dining room, dressed in a plain stuff gown and leaning with distaste upon Mrs Carter's arm. She looked tired and irritable. Her inability to mask her feelings marked her as still vulnerably frail. "This material scratches," she complained, in lieu of any other greeting to the company.

Jim stood and walked to her. His finger and thumb took a pinch of the material at her wrist. "It's decent fabric and well-worn. Your sensibility plays tricks on you." He turned away, wiping his hand without thinking against the side of his breeches.

Alicia sank into a chair. "Your bracing good sense is such a comfort to me, Jim."

Stavely offered her food, but she waved it away with a nauseated expression. They sat in silence, until a footman announced the arrival of the carriage. Alicia was assisted in, with Stavely beside her, and Jim and Blair opposite. Jim pulled down the window, before he took Blair's hand in his, without regard to the looks of either Stavely (amused) or Alicia (knowing). It was not an affectionate clasp, more the firm enclosure of the bars of a cage, and then he looked out the window and was silent. Blair was silent also, a trial to him but he knew that nothing could come out of him except babble, and he had no desire to do anything to ignite what seemed a potentially explosive atmosphere.

Finally, he could bear it no more, but determined that he would keep his remarks to the business at hand.

"Do you think that your hearing or sight will be most useful?"

Jim shrugged. "Hearing, most likely, although I will see what I can through the windows, and I will take a circuit on foot before we return." He swallowed. The tiny space was ripe with scent - Stavely's cologne and hair oil, Alicia's stale scent of sickness, Blair. Jim leaned against the leather seat and tried to smell only Blair. Already, he could feel the cacophony of the streets enclosing him in a net of noise, and he was hard pressed to not painfully grip Blair's hand.

Alicia leaned forward, her face almost earnest, although Jim could see the undercurrent of spite and even jealousy in her eyes. "You have your anchorage. Hold fast and you cannot go too far astray. You know that." She looked up and pointed through the narrow window. "That building there, with the stone trim under the window frames. That's Preston's house."

Blair turned to look. Preston's house, the source of their troubles, but only a house. Alicia said, "The third window at the second storey - that's Preston's bedroom. If the diary isn't in his hiding place then he'll have it there. For bed-time reading as it were." Her voice turned bitter, and Blair felt a small frisson of disgust.

Jim was hardly aware of Alicia's voice. With relief, he chose to ignore the cramped carriage interior, the melange of sounds and smells, even Blair, sitting close against him covered with a tang of anxious sweat; instead he looked at the house, noting windows and relating them to Alicia's descriptions, looking past the glare and shine of glass to see what he could indoors. He listened. The rattle of the carriage lay under all, but what he heard was the noises of the house; the arguments of the staff in the kitchen, the footsteps of Preston in the hallway, the creak of a door, the skitter of mice and rats through the walls of the house...

"Jim!" Blair's voice wasn't loud, but it was urgent.

"What?"

"You were not altogether with us, Captain Ellison," said Stavely. "It was a touch uncanny."

"He needs to set the rat-catchers to work, does he not?" Alicia said. "And make his people to clean out the midden."

"Were you following Captain Ellison with your own capacities?" Stavely questioned.

Alicia smiled. "Only in memory. It is easier to keep my senses leashed for now, and even so they escape my control." She looked at the house with unsettled, angry passion. "Preston has friends, strange friends at the docks. The bring him curiosities, and books - and herbs."

"And did you take his herbs willingly or unwillingly?" Jim asked, suddenly enlightened.

Her hands clenched in the stuff of her gown. "I was already ill, and he said they would help. Said that one of his friends recognised the picture I drew. It tasted right - but it wasn't." She stared at Jim with a feral light in her eyes. "He lied. He knew."

Stavely's face was drawn with distaste once more. "Suffer not a witch to live, eh? Friend Preston is full of resource. No wonder you came to me."

Blair stared in horror. For all his disgust and fear of Alicia, there was something terrible in the thought of her poisoned because of superstition and simple ruthlessness.

"The biter, bit," Jim said with dark amusement. "Don't look to me to revenge you."

"Oh, but you will make a start, Jim, by taking away one of his toys."

The Duke banged on the roof of the carriage, to indicate that they should return. "Toys? You have a dangerous idea of amusement, Mrs Bannister."

Alicia took a deep breath, pale and exhausted after the quick flood of emotion. "Have not all of us here, your grace? Have not all of us?"

***

Jim would not accept the offer of the carriage to take them back to their own home. It smelled too strongly of Alicia. When he and Blair stood outside Blair's house, he delayed their entry and startled Blair by spitting into the street.

"Are you all right?"

Jim said nothing, just spat periodically a few more times before saying, "My mouth feels tainted." He shrugged off Blair's hand to his shoulder. "As it does when a smell is too strong..." He spat again. His mouth was full of saliva, and he hoped he wouldn't vomit.

"Come inside," Blair coaxed. "We can surely find something to help." He grinned, trying to be cheerful. "Spirits, if all else fails."

Jim gave him a rueful look. "For God's sake, not brandy."

Blair shuddered, but felt less uncertain of his ground at Jim's acknowledgement. "Indeed, not brandy. Perhaps gin?" he suggested in mischievous relief.

Sickness was averted and Jim ended up swilling his mouth with a mix of port and water, but nothing he did could remove the smell of Alicia from his perceptions. He washed and changed his clothes and insisted Blair do the same, handing everything to Joel in a heap with instructions for thorough cleaning and airing. His temper grew more ragged and he controlled it only through a stiff distance from both Joel and Blair, even though he could fully sense the uncertainty that came over Blair as the evening progressed.

Tomorrow night he very likely would attempt Preston's house and run the risk of being hanged as a felon if he was caught. It was not a pleasant thought, but how to express his anxiety to Blair without running the risk of sounding as if he blamed him for the necessity? It was outside his ability to safely express, and eventually he again went to his solitary bedroom.

Blair challenged him on this. "Jim, whatever your anger with me, I think that our connection..." He struggled for a way to say what was needed. "Your senses are better controlled in my company, and you will need them as controlled as they can be. I take it you're thinking as soon as possible for this business of Preston's house."

"I thought tomorrow night. The sooner the better to get this over."

Blair looked up at him, trying to sound out Jim's broader intentions. Such a short time ago they were in amity, and now he hardly knew where they stood with each other.

"And then back to Ashford?"

"Yes," Jim said shortly and turned to go to his room.

"Jim?"

"I cannot...Sandburg, now that I know of her...she spoke of instinct, and I simply want peace. Just some peace, that's all!" His voice rose and he tried to gentle it.

"I helped before." Blair's voice was very low.

"Not tonight," Jim said and shut the door behind him, hiding like an animal brooding in its lair. He felt restless and some detached part of him wondered how much Alicia's presence was to blame and how much was his own reaction to the sheer knowledge that she was nearby - protected by Stavely's interests, scheming and planning, and knowing too damn much about Blair and Jim and what they were to each other.

Blair - he must find a way to make his tempers up to Blair when this was over. And Joel also.

He could not rest. He paced the room, listening to the sounds of the house. Joel was getting ready for bed. Blair sat in the library, turning pages of a book. It sounded aimless, something that Blair did without thought or concentration. Jim wondered if he ought to take Blair with him tomorrow night; not into Preston's house itself, but somewhere nearby. He thought of what he had seen and sensed, what he had spoken of with Alicia and Stavely. And still he could smell the bitch, her scent clinging somewhere in the house, and with maddened irritation he jerked open his bedroom door to seek the smell out. He must think of her and her advice but he refused to have reminders of her presence in the house. He wanted it gone. It would be gone.

He found the source of the taint easily enough, and gathered it up into his hands with a snarl. Then it was down the back stairway to the small yard at the rear of the house, with its own taints and stenches. There were the cans that a night-soil man was paid to take away, the refuse heap that waited on a rag-and-bone man, all the cess and rubbish of a place where humanity gathered in its myriads. It disgusted him suddenly. The yard also stank of the ashes of the rubbish fire, and he threw his burden down atop them and sought inside for a small spill to light at the embers of the kitchen fire. He bore his tiny flame outside, sheltered in his cupped hand. The rubbish took some time to light but eventually there was a determined, if sometimes smouldering, fire. All Jim could feel was a fierce satisfaction, until finally he returned to a cooler state of mind, chilled still further as he watched a piece of fast charring red velvet writhe and twist upon the flames.

He took a stick and stood undecided before the fire. It was too late to retrieve his action, and instead he chose to poke the fire into more heat. The left-over remnants of fabric were too much like an unburied corpse atop the heap. He stared, fascinated by the flicker of the flames, the heat playing against his skin, and flinched in surprise when he heard Blair's voice.

"I thought I smelled smoke, even without your nose. What are you doing?"

Blair's eyes were big in the dim light. It was full dark, lit only by the remnants of the fire and lamplight from within the kitchen door. He leaned forward to look at the fire. At that moment, with fateful precision, a piece of cuff, its button melted but still recognisable, fell from the main part of the fire and dropped to the rough cobbles of the ground.

Blair went very still. Jim stood silent, aware of the terrible scale of his folly. How to explain that the burning of the red velvet dressing gown had seemed as necessary and unavoidable a purge as puking up the brandy after that terrible night of misery and drunkenness? He'd been purely a creature of sensation and emotion, and consequences had never entered into his head.

They crowded there now, as Blair said with thick but unsurprised despair, "Could you not have left me that?" He turned on his heel, but then looked back from the kitchen door, supporting himself with a hand against the door jamb. "Might I suggest that simply sending Joel to despatch my belongings from Ashford will garner less gossip than a bonfire. And some of my books are valuable; to me at least."

Jim stood, struggling to breathe against the stone that sat crushed within his chest. Then he furiously followed in Blair's wake, his longer legs gaining on Blair's speedy retreat up the stairs, until he snagged Blair's arm in his hand and spun him around.

"You would leave me over a piece of cloth?" It was cruelty, he knew it, but if Blair was too engaged in desperate defence to run away, then he would at least be present, he would be there. Shockingly, Blair swung at him, a fighter's quick jab to the stomach, and Jim barely blocked the worst of it. Wincing, he clung on all the more grimly to Blair's arm.

Blair shouted, shouted, uncaring of any ears, sentinel or otherwise. "Let go of me! Bastard!" He aimed a kick and Jim understood that any second now they would be grappling like two brawlers in any common tavern. Then they both froze at the bang of an opening door, the thud of running feet, and Joel's astonished voice.

"What is this?" Joel had come out ready for battle; it was in his stance and the light of his eyes, but when he saw that it was Jim and Blair, he stopped short, stunned almost by amazement. "I... Captain Ellison?"

Jim ought to let go of Blair; but he couldn't. Joel's expression changed, became wary and he took a step forward. He took one quick look at Jim and then at Blair, lit by the weak glow of the single candle sconce. "Mr Sandburg? Blair?"

"This is none of your concern, Joel." Jim believed it with all his heart, and Joel was utterly unconvinced. He looked once again at Jim's set face, and then shook his head. "Blair?" he repeated.

Jim waited, his hand still holding on to Blair's arm for dear life, his face turned only to Blair, who wouldn't look at him. Finally, Blair lifted his head, and spoke.

"Jim, let go of me, and I will talk to you."

Jim, speechless, shook his head. Joel took another step forward, his voice calm. "Jim?" It was the tone of a man trying to calm a nervous horse or a growling dog, and some sense finally returned to Jim. He let go of Blair, and raised both hands, palm up, empty.

"Are you satisfied now?" He looked at Joel.

Blair raised a trembling hand and wiped back his hair, felt the sweat that slicked along the line of his hair. "It's all right, Joel." He smiled in pale imitation of his usual grin. "Well, not all right, but..." His eyes pleaded. Blair could no longer delay this - whatever this might be - but he wanted no witnesses. "Go back to bed, and we will try not to disturb your rest." He shrugged. "You have heard us shout at each other before."

Joel stood in indecision, before he said, "I doubt that I shall sleep." It was warning and reassurance both.

"Then we shall all be in company together," Blair said tiredly. He turned for his bedroom and held the door open, one hand gesturing impatiently to Jim. "You and I have a piece of cloth to discuss, do we not?"

Jim entered in, and Blair shut the door behind him, but did not lock it. He leaned against his bureau, eyes carefully avoiding the chair where until recently there had been draped a dressing gown, all shabby splendour and comfort.

"Do you want me gone?" he asked bluntly. "When this is all over?"

Jim found he had nothing to say.

"I don't need eloquence, Jim, a simple yes or no will do. Do you want me gone? Because I can be, sleight of hand, hey presto, no more Blair Sandburg."

"No." It rasped out of Jim's mouth throat like some insect noise.

Blair waved his hands before him in dazed despair. "Then, why?" The 'why' cracked into two syllables. "Why would you do that?"

"Because it stank of her!" Jim sank onto the bed, his head in his hands. "Christ, I'm a madman."

"Of her? Of Alicia?"

"No, of fucking Princess Charlotte. Of course of Alicia!"

"Oh." Blair tried to gather his thoughts, without success. "And you could not have asked Joel to clean it and air it?"

Jim lifted his head and looked at Blair who had intended an air of casual interrogation in his lean against the furniture. It was a failure. "Sandburg, why are we breaking our hearts over a dressing gown?"

Blair's face twisted, and he put his hand across his mouth and jaw and held tight lest it all shake apart. "Because you gave it to me, and I loved it and I thought...I thought..."

"I can hardly blame you." Jim fell back onto the mattress and stared at the ceiling above him. "How do you tolerate this? Me?"

Blair approached and gingerly sat on the bed. "It's a question for sages to ponder." His voice was still not quite steady.

Jim still stared at the ceiling. "I do not like myself like this."

Blair broke into shaky laughter. "Certainly you are not showing your best face to the world."

Jim rolled onto his side, and leaned up on his elbow and stared into Blair's face. "No, I mean it. Why must this..." one hand sliced through the air, trying to cut through useless words, "why must this be a face of mine?"

Blair sobered. "I don't know. We are what we are."

"But there's no place for it!" Jim protested. "And you and I are already too many things that have no place."

"Then we make a place, whether one of physicality or philosophy."

"Oh, is that what we do?" Jim lay back down, one hand across his eyes, his back aching slightly because his booted feet still rested on the floor. Sighing, he sat up.

"Blair, I am sorry."

"So am I, Jim, but what's done is done, and still more yet to do. Of which the first is sleep, or rest at least." Blair scrambled from the bed, and took off his coat. "Will you stay here?" he asked uncertainly.

There was part of Jim that would still have preferred solitude, but he would do no more harm this night. He dragged off his clothes.

"I can't replace what's gone," he said haltingly, "but maybe..."

Blair shook his head, a wistful smile on his face. "It wouldn't be the same." He patted awkwardly at Jim's shoulder. "Some other gift. There'll be some other gift."

"Yes." Jim settled himself on the covers, leaning against the headboard.

"You're not going to try to sleep?" Blair pulled back the sheets as far as he could with Jim anchoring the rest of the bed linen.

"I'm not sure that I can."

Blair got into the bed and dragged covers up over him like a barricade.

"You need to try. Being stupid with exhaustion is hardly a state in which to try housebreaking."

"I know that!" Jim snapped.

"Then since we are both in agreement, I suggest that you lie down, in the bed, and shut your eyes."

"And when did you become my commanding officer?"

Blair leaned up on an elbow, sharp edges of anger rising once more.

"Think of it as the beginning of reparation, and just try, will you?" He held his breath, as Jim looked as if he might bolt for privacy under the force of the jibe, but then, with clenched jaw, he got properly into the bed and laid his head upon the bolster. They lay there, two islands separated by an ocean of sheets.

Jim turned restlessly. "The house isn't locked," he said and got out of the bed and pulled his breeches back on before padding downstairs in bare feet. The kitchen door stood wide open, and Jim shut and locked it, not before staring with complicated grief at the still smouldering yard-fire contained in its rough housing of brick.

He met Joel upon the stairs.

"You don't need to stay up, Joel. All is in order now."

"As opposed to disorder before." Joel's dark eyes surveyed Jim, and noted the tired slump of the broad shoulders, the shadows under his eyes. "Mr Sandburg was very distressed."

"He had the right." Jim sat upon the treads suddenly, and bowed his head. "Whatever his follies, I've committed my own ten times over."

Joel sat upon the stairs above Jim. "Will he return to Ashford?"

"I hope so. He's of a forgiving nature, which is as well given this night and all that's gone before it."

"What did you do?" There was a silence, very nearly as weighted as the frantic 'bastard' that Blair had spat out. It was not a word that either Joel or Jim heard often from him.

A red flush crept over Jim's face. Joel couldn't see it in dimness surrounding the stairs but Jim felt it on his skin like the lick of flame. "I burnt his dressing gown. Because I could smell her on it."

Joel frowned in astonished anger. "Do you want him to return with us?"

"Yes, of course I do! Although if neither of you believe that after what I did I could hardly be surprised." Jim twisted his head to look up at Joel. "Enough of this. You got everything I asked for?"

"It's ready. The purchase of thieves' accoutrements was at least a distraction to my worries about my employer."

Jim stood, and clasped Joel's shoulder as he walked past him up the stairs. "I'm fortunate in my conspirators and my friends. Go to bed."

Blair wasn't asleep when Jim returned. He lay still and tense in the bed, hunched around himself like a snail curled in its shell.

"Did I hear Joel?"

"Yes, you heard Joel. I told him the gist of tonight's business, confirmed some matters for tomorrow night, and now I'm here again. Not in my own room."

"And how do things go for you?"

Jim shrugged. The flames and Blair's distress had in their different ways burnt some of the restlessness out of him. Now, he was merely sick of himself and desperately tired, but frightened to lie beside Blair and feel his grief or his anger.

"I could sleep, I suppose."

Blair turned to face him. "You can't do that unless you get into the bed." He lifted a hand out of the bed-clothes and indicated that Jim approach. Jim did so, and lay down with a small, involuntary grunt of relief. Blair's hand patted against one palm as it lay on the mattress and Jim closed his own hand around it briefly. "You'll take care tomorrow, won't you?"

Jim's eyes lifted in exasperation. "Yes, Sandburg, I'll be careful."

"Good." There were no more words, and no more touches, but still Jim was somehow comforted enough to drop off to sleep. Sleep came more slowly to Blair, who tried to keep still so as not to disturb Jim, but finally, he had peace enough to drop off into his own rest.

They both woke before dawn, aware of each other's weight in the bed, and awkward as they seldom were together.

Blair sat up before he got out of bed and sought the screen and the chamber pot. Then he paused, suddenly unsure of what to do - to get back into the bed, or to dress and go downstairs. He shivered, goose bumps rising on his skin in the cool morning air, and Jim said, "Get back under the covers. You'll catch your death."

Blair climbed back into bed and lay there, his feet twisting against the sheets as he sought for warmth.

"What does one do on the day before your lover goes stealing?" he enquired.

"Damned if I know what you'll do," Jim said. "Mrs Bannister has promised me a lesson in lock-picking today. She assures me I will do excellently well."

Blair sighed. 'The two of you have advantages in the business." There was a pause. "It's as well I don't have your sensitive nose. God knows what I should do if I smelled her on you the way you have smelled her on me."

Jim turned to face him then. "Don't..." His voice grew rough. "Don't try to be understanding."

"I'm not understanding. I'm jealous as hell, and scared of what will happen tonight." Blair's eyes flashed with anger, and sudden yearning.

Jim's more powerful sight noted the look and he moved across the small space of separation and tentatively placed a hand on Blair's hip. "There's no need for either feeling."

With a long sigh, Blair was somehow wrapped in the curve of Jim's body. "Well, no need for one of them, perhaps."

"And which would that be?" Jim questioned, warm breath heating Blair's skin, and his hand rubbing circles across Blair's hip.

Blair's breath caught. Instead of answering, he nuzzled his head into the crook of Jim's shoulder and neck, and laid his mouth against the skin of throat and jaw. The growing length of his cock rubbed against Jim's hip, incidentally at first, but with growing purpose. His hand reached for Jim's prick, to discover him barely half-hard, and he stropped his hand gently across it, the foreskin travelling back and forth with the grip, until Jim laid his own hand across Blair's.

"I think I am too much on guard."

Blair's face broke into a smile. "Sentinel," he said.

Jim frowned, and stroked across Blair's back with a certain determination. "_Word_ play wasn't my intention."

"Perhaps another time. But it doesn't feel right to do this without you - involved."

"Do you want this?" Jim's hand moved to clasp Blair's arse, which still moved, still drove his body against Jim's skin.

"Yes."

Jim took a purposeful hold of Blair, and framed his body inside Jim's embrace. "Then do it. It's little enough pleasure you've had of me recently."

Blair shuddered, and his mouth latched at Jim's shoulders, his throat, until with a small whine he struggled on top of Jim's body and hid his face against his skin, pushing, rubbing, while Jim's hands crossed his body with calculated care until Blair finally came, and finally stilled.

Blair's mouth sought for Jim's face in the dark room, and placed one kiss against a straight line of brow. Then his face shifted from pleasure and relieved affection to a self-satisfied smile. He wriggled like a snake through the mess that plastered their skin.

"Perhaps I should require that you not wash before you attend Alicia's highly interesting lessons."

Jim smiled. "Games again," he said, but when Joel announced later that he had water for washing and shaving, Jim swiped the cloth cursorily across his skin.

***

It was night in London, although hardly silent. There would always be taverns and gaming houses and brothels, and even select gatherings where activity would continue on into the small hours of the morning. Jim could hear the murmur of noise from behind curtained windows as he walked part of the way to Preston's house. He wore the clothes of a respectable man, but not a rich one. The cloth was plain, and sober, in shades of brown and the coat was loose enough that a man might move in it. The boots were dull - no shine there, and Jim had roughened the soles before he left.

His hands were clenched in his pockets and the collar of the coat was raised high. That was no more than a passer-by might expect. It was cool after all, and the scent of coming rain lay hidden under the smell of coal smoke that rose in the air.

One side of Jim's coat dragged, because of the cosh that lay buried in a deep pocket. Blair's eyebrows had raised at that. "I thought you were an honourable soldier, Captain Ellison?"

"My own youth was as educational as yours, Sandburg." And then he had kissed Blair, because if all went well this night, then the worst of this nightmare would be over. Now, he walked the streets with a cosh in his coat pocket, along with twine and lock-picks, and a broken portion of some old hinged tongs - the better to poke through a small pane of glass if needed. There were gloves. There was a dark scarf and stocking hat to hide Jim's face and hair when the time came. The scarf had spent much of the day in Blair's pocket. Jim had watched him fiddle with it sometimes, drawing it out to run it through his fingers or wrap it across his palm. It was a compromise, a way to bring something of Blair with him on this night, while Blair waited at Stavely's, and Jim prayed that Alicia kept her distance from him.

Preston's house lay silent. There were no signs of light, except in one room upstairs - Preston's bedroom. That was not the room that Jim sought; instead he ducked off the street down the alleyway that ran across the back of the row of houses and hurried on quiet feet to a window that Alicia assured him would permit his entry and was far from anywhere that people slept in the house. He stopped to drag on the hat and scarf and to listen, but there was no sound to disturb him except the rasp of his own breathing. He held his breath as he drove through the leaded pane of glass. The crack and crunch of breaking glass was loud as thunder in his ears, but there was no noise of investigation. Jim pulled on the gloves and picked at a few shards and then carefully unlatched the window and pulled it open. A quick scramble through the window, hands first to support him as he finally reached the floor and practically fell the last portion - and he was inside.

He stood. It was a laundry room and sheets and clothes hung suspended like ghosts, as Jim ducked his way through the web of cord and clammy cloth. There was the hall, dark as the rest of the house was; the back stairs; the route to the study, Preston's sanctum and hidey-hole. The door was locked, but that was no surprise. Jim knelt and tossed the gloves aside. The cosh he laid on the floor beside him and then took up the lock-picks, tiny slivers of metal in the slippery grip of his hands. He leaned close to the lock, smelled the harshness of brass and polish. The back of his hand rubbed against the scarf across his face, and what he smelled instead was Blair. The locks gave way against him. Alicia had been both pleased and jealous at the way he had understood her lessons.

Picks back into his pocket, cosh in one hand, Jim stepped through the door, and whirled away from the smell of a man and the feeble glow of a night lamp which warmed the metal sheen of a knife. A man, and Jim could see him clearly, while his opponent saw no more than shadows. 'Will cut a throat and sleep in peace after'; it was Jacks. Jacks' hand speared across the gap between them, and Jim's over-sensitive ears heard the small noise as it cut at the cuff of his jacket; he felt the smart as the blade scored his hand, although not deeply. Jacks drew back, readying himself for another pass, but when it came, Jim was ready for him, and his fist smacked into Jacks' nose. The man fell in a heap with an odd grunt and lay still.

Jim approached him carefully. Jacks lay on the carpet, lit by the weak, narrow beam of the storm lantern. There was no movement, no sound except a stutter of raucous breath. Jim turned him to his back. Jacks whimpered, and Jim saw the hilt of the knife rising from his body. So little sound, so little movement. He was hurt badly, but Jim had, he realised, no pity. That knife was no kitchen implement. No, no pity. Jim had a job to do here and he would do it. He picked up the lantern. There was no need to strain his senses if he could avoid it. He was already thinking hard of Blair's scent in the scarf, rather than the scent of blood in the air. He lifted his hands to the place in the mantle where Preston had stored the diary. It took no more than a moment, and sweating hands reached into the small space and triumphantly drew out a book.

Jim's pleasure was short-lived. It was Mulgrew's diary, no doubt about that from even a quick inspection, but there was only half of it. The book had been split in half down the spine, the remnants of the binding flapping loose and frayed. Jim clenched his fingers around it in sheer fury, and then he lowered his head in frantic thought. Firstly, he held the book to his face and inhaled. There was the scent of old leather and paper; good, rag-based paper, the smell of ink; and the smell of a man - Preston, Jim presumed. He jammed the half-book into an inside pocket of his coat and stepped out of the room without another glance back. Behind him, Jacks' breathing grew more quiet and erratic. Before him, there was a fine stairway. It was cunningly carved, and well-polished and it led to Preston, and likely to others who might not be so easy to dismiss from Jim's conscience as Jacks. He climbed it anyway, in swift silence. He knew the upstairs and its rooms from Alicia's pictures and prompts; and from the remembered glow of light seen outside, he knew which room was the one he needed.

Jim reached the room and stopped. And then, he knocked on the door.

"Jacks?"

Jim panicked for one moment, before he said simply, "Sir?" He could hear footsteps; he could feel the vibration of Preston's footsteps as he came closer rising through the soles of his own feet. The lock rattled and clicked - vindication of Jim's risk. The door opened and Jim was through the entrance like the wind and Preston was caught up in a whirlwind hold that left him choking for air against the wall of his bedroom.

"Not one sound," Jim hissed. Preston's eyes bulged in terror as he stared at Jim. All that he could see was bright blue eyes in a strip of skin between the hat and the scarf that covered Jim's face and head.

Slowly the ferocious grip against Preston's throat was relaxed. Jim judged that his prey was sufficiently cowed for now and returned to lock the door behind them. Then he turned back.

Stavely had described Preston as looking like a miscarried sheep. It was a cruel description but not inaccurate. Preston was narrow across his shoulders, although he was also possessed of a small paunch. His face was long and pale and his eyes were dark, even though his hair was almost flaxen and looped in frizzy curls. The fair skin was damp with sweat. "Where's Jacks?" he croaked.

"Did I tell you to speak?" Jim enquired with smooth menace. "You know what I want. Where is it?"

Preston's pressed into a tight line. "Who are you?" he asked.

"I think you know quite enough names, Mr Preston. But if you won't be co-operative..." Jim took a grip on Preston. He didn't trust the man not to cry out, and he wanted to be able to command silence without delay.

"Whatever Stavely's offering you, I can offer more." Preston's voice was pained rasp.

"Shut up," Jim said, shaking Preston briefly to emphasise his point. He looked around the room, which was comfortable, maybe even luxurious. There were pictures on the wall which would not have been out of place inside some of Stavely's more explicit tomes.

Jim took the twine out of his pocket and tied Preston's wrists, while the other man's skin blossomed with an even thicker scent of fear. "Sit," Jim commanded and pushed him onto the bed. "If you shout, it will be very painful for you. And Jacks won't be coming to help you."

"What did you do?" Jim ignored this. He had ever been quick to notice and comprehend what his eyes showed him. Mulgrew's journal wasn't in sight, but that didn't mean it wasn't there. Preston watched with frightened eyes, but his mind worked at speed under the goad of fear.

"It's not like one of our kind to get his hands dirty with this work. One of Stavely's minions, are you? Or one of Alexandra's friends?"

Jim still said nothing. Instead, he came close and leaned over Preston, sniffing delicately at the man, trying to determine the base scent of him - base in every sense of the word. Preston sat frozen under this investigation, his eyes squeezed shut. Jim's hand patted at the half of the journal in his pocket and he stood straight, stepped back, and shut his eyes. Somewhere, almost certainly in this room, there was a particular mix of scents, of old paper and leather and Preston's malice and curiosity and desire. With a small, indrawn breath, Jim let his nose lead him straight to the head of Preston's bed. He lifted the pillow - and there it was, open and face down.

Jim picked it up. Half of one page to which it had been opened had been neatly excised with the aid of a sharp knife. That quick connection between Jim's eye and mind saw a single sentence on the remainder at the top of the page: "His youthful dignity was wounded, but after considerable cajoling Sandburg agreed, and with his usual sweet impudence insisted that his humiliation must have due reward." Jim's hands smacked the pages shut, before he stuffed the half-book into his pocket to join its separated twin.

Preston drew his own conclusions from Jim's method of discovery. "A friend of Alexandra's, I see."

Jim had no need to feign his anger at that insinuation. "No friend of mine." He came and crouched before Preston. It wasn't a supplicant's position, more the preparation of a hunting beast. "But she is something like to me." Jim's eyes crinkled as he smiled. "If she is a witch, then so am I, and now you have the enmity of us both." Preston's eyebrow rose in attempted disdain, but it was a poor effort. "Have you hidden any more portions of Mulgrew's journal? Any leaves left to flutter elsewhere? Remember, I know if you're lying to me. I'm no sickly creature to be tricked - or poisoned."

Preston remained silent, and then yelped as Jim stood and grabbed the frizzled hair that lay at his nape. "You're not answering my question."

"There is no more. You have it all except for the portions that I sent out."

Jim surveyed Preston, every twitch and sweat drop on his face, the thunderous sound of his heart, the gulping noise of his swallows, the smell of defeat that rose from him. He was very nearly satisfied. Without warning, he locked his arm across Preston's neck from behind, and clamped his hand over Preston's mouth. Preston's legs kicked like a man hanging from the gallows, before he realised that he still breathed, was still alive. Jim's hand held Preston's mouth and jaw like a steel trap, before his free hand tore Preston's cravat from around his neck and stuffed the ends of it into his mouth, gagging him. Jim pushed Preston face-first onto the bed. More twine bound the man's legs. There was time for a coup de grace, an insufficient revenge for the hurt this man had caused. Jim stooped, and dropped a dry kiss on Preston's thinning scalp, before he spat there also. "My curse on you," he said. If he'd had the power, it would have been more than a last gesture of contempt.

Now, there was no more left than to escape, and Jim saw no reason to clamber out of a window. The house was silent enough to calm him. If anyone else was awake, they didn't stir. There were no shouts of horror to mark the discovery of a corpse in the study downstairs. Jim walked to the front door, and listened briefly before he pulled off the hat and scarf and walked with apparent nonchalance into the street. He stood straight, burdened with nothing except the journal in his pocket. All his thieves' tools he had left behind him in the house. The hat he dropped behind him in the street, the scarf he used to wrap around the cut on his wrist. He had nearly forgotten it before, but now it stung. Blair would no doubt rebuke him for his carelessness. The thought oddly lightened Jim's heart, and he broke into a run in the darkness of the streets, sure of his footing and his way.

***

The night wore on in the house of the Duke of Stavely. Jim had left for Preston's house about eleven of the clock. It was now passing out of the small hours and into true morning, albeit a very early one. Stavely dozed in a chair before the fire in his library. Blair had already dozed, and then read without attention, and now he paced the lower hallway, which was lit with two scandalously wasteful full candelabras. He was on his fourteenth pass, keeping distracted count, when there was the noise of a door behind him, and Jim entered from the back rooms of the house. Blair's face lit with a smile far brighter than the candles.

"You're back," he declared. Then he saw the scarf across Jim's wrist and the mark of blood on the cuff of the shirt. "You're hurt!"

Jim shook his head, before one arm swung across Blair's shoulders for a brief hug. "It's nothing. Where's Stavely?"

"The library."

"Is there a fire lit?"

Blair's face lit with a grin that was more predatory than relieved. "Oh, yes, there's a fire."

"Then let's not waste any more time."

They strode together to the library, Stavely waking at the sound of their feet. He did not rise from his chair, but his eyes looked into Jim's face with instant alertness.

"Captain Ellison."

"I have it," Jim said and drew the two portions of the journal out his pocket. Stavely received one of them and after one quick glance to ensure that what he held was what he wanted, he began the process of ripping it further and feeding it to the fire. The flames leapt into a roar at the sudden rush of fuel. Jim also methodically and swiftly tore at his portion, waiting impatiently for the right moments to throw more of his burden into the fire without stifling the burning of the papers that were already alight. Blair leant behind Jim, stooping to rest his hands on Jim's shoulders as he knelt before the fireplace, and watched the flames with delighted fascination.

All the book was aflame, much of it already dark and unreadable ashes in the grate, before any of them spoke once more.

"Hail and farewell," the Duke said. "I've taken this much satisfaction in precious little else. Did all go straight-forwardly?"

Jim's right hand lifted to cover Blair's upon his shoulder. "Not entirely. I've left Preston's bully dead behind me, I suspect." Blair's hand closed hard upon Jim's shoulder, and Jim patted absently at it in comfort.

The Duke was undisturbed by this news. "And Preston himself?"

"Alive. Unless he chokes on his cravat, but I think he will be safe enough." Jim said no more.

Stavely bowed his head in thought. "The loss of the journal would be hard to lay at your door, but with a dead man..." The Duke considered Jim. "You and I are of a size, Captain. Some clean linen I think, and clothes more suited to a gentleman visiting friends of an evening." He grinned. "Or morning." He pulled at the bell. His valet appeared, a gentleman whose attitude was strangely unsuperior for his position.

"Davidson. Find Captain Ellison something of mine to wear - I'm sure there are items to spare, and then please dispose, thoroughly, of his current clothes. A casual enquirer might suspect me of the shame of entertaining tradesmen, otherwise."

Davidson bowed in a business-like way. "Your grace." He gestured to Jim. "Sir."

"I'll be back shortly," Jim said, with one last squeeze to Blair's hand as he stood.

Blair smiled. "Yes." His gaze followed Jim as he left the room.

Stavely rolled his shoulders. Staring at the mess of ash in the fireplace and vigorously poking at the remnants with a poker soothed the tension from his body far more. The last flare of the flames divided the planes of the old, strong face amongst shadow and red light. There was silence for a while and then Stavely spoke.

"So, Blair. This is the end of our association once more."

"Yes, I believe it is."

"Your soldier will be immensely relieved. He has his austerities, even if he is not so strait-laced as his father."

Blair's brows rose in surprise. "You know William Ellison?"

Stavely smiled. "I met him once, long ago. A very handsome man, but quite disgusted by me, of course. Although I understand that there is little that has not disgusted Mr Ellison in his time. Have you met him?"

"Jim's father? Good God, no," Blair replied.

"It's as well. He wouldn't appreciate you, my dear."

"No matter," Blair said. "There are enough who do."

"So long as your soldier is one of them, eh? I regret the trouble I brought upon you."

A shadow crossed Blair's face. The rift between Jim and him was not yet entirely bridged. "You didn't bring the trouble, your grace. I regret nothing that happened between you and I."

Stavely smiled. "I doubt that Captain Ellison would accept that sentiment in you, nor your charming mother, but I shall. It was a pleasure to have a share in the shaping of you."

Blair laughed; he was touched, and embarrassed by it. "I don't doubt the pleasure."

"Insolent brat." Stavely looked up. "And here you are, Captain Ellison. You look far more the part. I must offer you my thanks."

Jim stood stiffly. He had overheard the last part of the conversation. It pained him, both the reminders of recent distress and the remembrance that Stavely had known Blair so intimately.

"There's no need to thank me. What I did was for my own good as much as yours." The journal no longer threatened anyone; and the record of Blair's dissolute adolescence was safe from all eyes, including Jim's.

"Indeed. Permit me to arrange a carriage for you. I shall forgo anything with my crest upon it."

"That would be a kindness," Blair said. "The lack of decoration, that is, as well as the carriage." He stood closer to Jim and smiled in pure mischief. "Can you imagine the descent of wrath upon my poor little house if rumour reached our relatives of such an arrival in the early morning?"

Jim smiled in his turn. It was not quite such an easy smile as Blair's, but he tried. "True. I've lived in daily fear of another visit from my brother."

Blair shrugged, and his mouth pursed in sour amusement. "A thought to set a man trembling, especially if he brings my mother with him."

Stavely stood there, but Jim didn't care. He reached for Blair's hand anyway. "If need be, perhaps you and I might show a more united defence?"

Blair's own smile became less easy, but not unhappily so. "That sounds an excellent plan. An excellent plan, Jim." His hand squeezed tightly around Jim's, and then he was struck with a thought that made him nervous all over again.

"I - uh - I should collect my papers, and maybe say my farewells to Alicia..." His voice trailed off.

Jim said nothing, but all the lines in his face seemed to narrow; his eyes were slits of blue, his mouth a hard line; then he exhaled a long, slow breath.

"Indeed, Sandburg, collect your papers. And by all means, let us make our farewells to Mrs Bannister - if she's awake." He gestured with ironic courtesy, and Blair stepped forward with alacrity and a suddenly thumping heart, and as happened all too often, an anxiously speaking mouth.

"You can't be surprised, Jim. You were the one who said that you'd rather stand between a tiger and her cub than me and a book. And there's a great deal of information in my notes, quite aside from any new ideas that I might be considering."

Jim held up one hand. "Blair, I don't plan to stand in the way of scholarship."

"Good, that's good, Jim, because I have very specific ideas on how you and I might proceed from this point - now that we have this new information, however it came about."

Jim's spirit of reconciliation was briefly tested. "Blair, gather your papers and permit me some rest before you set the world on its ear."

They had reached the box-room. Blair fumbled at the lock with his key - he should leave that with the Duke, he thought, and he gathered up everything of his into a leather portfolio.

"Let's go, Sandburg." Jim stood tense behind him, but Blair wouldn't be distracted. Tucking the portfolio under his arm, he gathered up the books that the Duke had found in Alicia's belongings.

"Alicia first, Jim."

"Why?"

Blair tilted his head to look up at Jim then. Jim's face was mask-like, and if a stranger had been there, he might have guessed that anger lay behind the rigid blankness. Blair's hands were occupied, but his face was suddenly full of affection, not unmixed with irritation.

"Why not?"

Stavely waited for them outside Alicia's door.

"She is awake - and writing letters. I fear she is impatient to quit my hospitality; but she will see you."

Blair bundled the leather portfolio into Jim's hands and stepped forward with the books. Alicia sat on the edge of her bed, dressed still in the same stuff gown that Blair had last seen on her. He wondered if she had even changed it. She looked up.

"And a sweet farewell to you, Blair."

"The sweeter for the more distance that will lie between us, I'd have thought."

"Oh, Blair, so cruel. I never bore you animosity."

"I suspect truth in that, and it only makes you the more monstrous."

Anger swept over her face, but it was restrained at its base by calculation. In truth, Alicia, Alexandra, whatever name she called herself, was rather proud of her detachment.

"Keep the books," she said carelessly. "I know what's in them and the medicines have failed me." Blair was surprised, but he still clasped the books closely to him. Alicia smiled. "Enjoy your discoveries, little guide. You deserve some reward for your use at the hands of sentinels. We are difficult creatures." Her gaze swept past Blair to Jim, who stood by the door simmering with silent anger and disgust. Blair judged it politic to leave and made sure that Jim exited the room ahead of him. There were no parting words between Jim and Alicia, not even any that only they might fully share.

Stavely escorted them downstairs, Blair still clutching at his booty. They entered the carriage and were carried away from Stavely's house in a grey dawn light.

It was a commodious space, and the two of them could have sat on opposite benches, but somehow they ended jammed side by side.

"You don't need to clutch them like your first-born, Sandburg. Your books are safe enough."

"What?"

"She was right that you deserve some reward for your dealings with we sentinels." The word was flavoured with exasperation and distaste in Jim's mouth.

"It's a good word for you, but for her I think we must find some other description. She's the guardian of nothing except her own self-interest."

"Are not we all?" Jim asked. His head leaned back against the leather seat and his hands fidgeted with Blair's leather portfolio, before he opened his eyes in surprise as it was lifted out of his lap. Blair dumped it with the books in the opposite seat and turned earnest eyes upon Jim.

"You are not the same as her, any more than all men are all the same because most of them possess eyes and ears. One man uses gifts for good and another for evil, but the gifts are just themselves, simply gifts. It's what you do with them that's important."

"How can you say that, after all that's passed?"

"Because it's true, idiot," Blair growled. "Without you and your gifts, a great many men and women would be facing despair and ruin and grief, and some of those people are dear to me. I can only be glad that my mother and Louise, and you and I don't have to face the lampoons and the scurrilous gossip and ostracism. Or Joel. There are servants' hierarchies, too, you know."

"I note that you do not include Stephen in your list." Jim's voice was dry, but relief and the beginning of peace flowed free inside him. "Or Mr Spring," he continued ruthlessly.

"Some people are more dear to me than others." Blair took hold of Jim's hand once more, the closest contact they might permit themselves in the dull, daylight streets, even through the narrow windows of the carriage.

"Good," Jim said. He linked his fingers through Blair's and enclosed the grasp in his other hand, and they sat like that until they reached their own door.

***

Many events occurred in London and the broader fields of England in 1819; some were given more note than others. Politics, the Peterloo massacre, the price of corn; all of this overtook one incident of house-breaking, even in Preston's street itself. There was even relief, especially once it appeared that the burglar would not return. Jacks had sat high in that servants' hierarchy, both in his own house and in the houses of neighbours, but he had been raised by fear. The strange incidents in Preston's house were a nine-days' wonder also. Flowers were found in odd places, sparrows fluttered in panic in a locked and shuttered bedroom, strange symbols appeared etched on windows and mirrors. Uncanny. Quite, quite uncanny, but when the house was re-let, there was no repeat of the phenomena, much to the disappointment of the new tenants.

A woman known as Annie Baxter paid a visit to an old friend of hers in small village in Hampshire. Annie was sickly, and spent much time with a child that she had delivered to the care of her friend a few years back. Drugs were one thing, a very useful thing, but Annie was prudent in her way, and a child who was scented underneath her dirt with all the wholesome pleasure of a guide ought to be cared for. One never knew when such a person might be useful. Annie departed her friend's care and not long after a handsome widow set up house in Hans Town. She was the subject of speculation as surely such a handsome widow must be. She kept unwell at first, and local wives gossiped that perhaps that was why her daughter was regrettably simple-minded. You needed strong, healthy mothers to produce strong, healthy children. But no-one could deny the affection between them, or the fact that they made a pretty picture as they sat together. Certainly the growing vivacity of the mother more than made up for the staring muteness of the daughter, and when Mrs Bassett announced her intention to join her brother and his family in York, her circle of friends declared they would miss her and that they would write unfailingly. It was regrettable that a rash of burglaries in the Hans Town area distracted from the plans of her friends to arrange a proper send-off for her.

The return of James Ellison and Blair Sandburg from London was barely noted anywhere except at Ashford estate. Certainly, no-one in the country recognised it as an escape, except for Joel, who had once again welcomed Stephen Ellison and Naomi Spring to the London house. This time, at least, although hardly comfortable, the interview had ended on a more contented note. So the year wore on, and then one day Jim received a letter.

It was heavy and bore an expensive postage price. When Jim opened it he saw why, because whoever wrote had not bothered to cross the lines of the letter. But then such an economy was of no matter to the Duke of Stavely. Jim could only be grateful that he had chosen to send his letter in anonymity rather than franked and sealed. The Duke's hand-writing sprawled in louche elegance across the page.

> "My dear Captain Ellison,
> 
> No doubt you wonder at my writing to you, especially given what came out of that letter of mine to Blair. I trust that he is in good health, by the way, and that you treat him well. Perhaps I should first assure you that I believe this letter will contain only items that you will find interesting news, and I write directly to you lest you think anything clandestine lies between Blair and me. I have no great desire to see my house and servants again inconvenienced by your provoked anger.
> 
> A lady of our acquaintance has decided that the New World beckons her once more. Her redoubtable qualities will serve her well, and she will be less likely to cross your path, which will be a relief to all, I am sure. She performed several small commissions for me before she left, (as you know, she possesses a plenitude of talents) but I think we may safely say that all is settled between us. I do not expect to see her again.
> 
> Nor do I expect to see our mutual friend, Mr Preston. He has retired to his country-house, his physical and mental health quite broken down. He claims curses and hauntings, and needs two strong men to settle him at night, or else raves and roams about. Granted, that strange things happened in his house, but it is a sad thing when the balance of the mind is so disturbed, is it not?
> 
> I hope that you are in good health. If ever you and Blair visit London again, be assured that you will be welcomed in my home - Blair especially. It would be pleasant to reminisce with him.
> 
> Edward Fitzcharles,  
>  Duke of Stavely."

This letter roused Jim to considerable annoyance, and in need of a vent, he stalked to where Blair was reading in the library, and thrust the pages under his nose.

"News," he said.

Blair started at this sudden appearance, and then paled as he recognised the hand-writing. Jim repented his irritable haste and said, "Not bad news. His grace has gossip for us but no more."

Blair was already swiftly reading, his brows raising, then gathering in a frown. "Clandestine indeed," he muttered. A small snort escaped him at the last line. "So," he said. "That is the end of that."

"So it is."

"It strikes me that Alicia's 'commissions' and the haunting of Preston's house were related."

"Possibly. Or perhaps she merely illustrated some of the Duke's pornography," Jim said waspishly.

"She possessed talent," Blair mused, and then rolled his eyes at Jim's look. "Not amusing, I know." He crumpled the letter into a ball, and threw it in the air, before batting it off his palm to send it neatly into the fireplace. Jim followed the movement, but said nothing at this cavalier disposal of his correspondence. Instead, there was pleasure at Blair's casual dismissal of Stavely's carefully penned letter. "Your arrival is timely. I was about to go in search of you, anyway."

"Yes?" Jim grew wary. Words did not come easily to him for some things, but he had done his best to make amends for the strain between Blair and him in London. His efforts at amends had included accepting Blair's renewed obsession with the study of his senses, and Blair had taken full advantage. Besides, the increased study was in its own way a form of amends. Joel's comment that Blair had left Jim undefended in ignorance had bitten deep once the worst crisis was over and Blair had made his own apologies over that.

"I am, I think, developing a theory."

"Oh, dear God, Sandburg, not another one."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Blair's face was openly amused and his voice was just as openly fond.

"You know what it means."

Blair cast a quick look at the library door, which was shut, and at the windows, which showed a view empty of people, and then kissed Jim, his tongue seeking and finding a welcome in Jim's mouth. He withdrew, but not too far.

"But you see, I think you will like the proving of this theory." His expression was full of warmth, and curiosity and the delight that Blair found in ideas that were manifestly true, if only he could make others see that. He was hard to resist in such a mood, and Jim surrendered gracefully.

"In that case, Professor, please, explain."

So Blair did; at length.

**Author's Note:**

> It's worth noting that while many people, including Jim and Naomi in this story, would regard the past relationship between Blair and Stavely as exploitative at best and abusive at worst, Blair and Stavely are not among them.


End file.
